When David Heard

Join The Purcell Singers in the atmospheric surroundings of a candlelit Smith Square Hall for a rich a cappella programme of contrasts: darkness and light, despair and hope, anguish and love. 

Combining unbridled energy and perfect balance, The Purcell Singers will lead you through the soundworlds of Whitacre, Brahms, Sandström, Rautavaara, and Kõrvits. 

In live performance, Eric Whitacre’s When David Heard is truly thrilling. The simple text repeats and builds within Whitacre’s soundscape with intricate interweaving patterns, the plaintive lamentation leading to a heart-stopping climax of raw emotion. 

Sandström’s Four Songs of Love use complex divisi to create dazzlingly spectral harmonic structures, expressing the ecstasy of a sigh – or the slow breathing of a lover – with exquisite detail. 

The soundworld of Rautavaara’s Missa a cappella is delicate and dramatic, contemporary and primeval, from the declamatory Gloria and unsettling rhythms and harmonies of the Credo, to the lyrical lushness of the Sanctus and the ethereal beauty of the Agnus Dei. 

Ending with Kõrvits’ The Night is Darkening Round Me, a setting of Emily Brontë’s beautiful text for eight voices and mezzo solo. It takes the form of a dialogue between the soloist and the choir where different fragments of the text and melody are developed and echoed back, weaving them into a complex overlapping texture of sound, and painting the dusk and fall of night around us all.