Werk: 4 Gesänge, Op.17

Wednesday night’s concert was the first in the Orchestra of St John’s Proms at the Ashmolean series of the new year. John Lubbock led the orchestra, the OSJ Ashmolean Voices and soloists Johnny Herford and Louise Wayman through lively performances of Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and J.S. Bach’s Liebster Jesu, mein Verlagen.

Here’s a choir that need never worry about attracting younger members. It runs its own school, with around 300 children, and from the age of ten the most musically gifted boys are channelled into the choir.