7.30pm Saturday 7th October 2023
St Albans Cathedral AL1 1BY

Ana Beard Fernández soprano
Zoë Brookshaw soprano*
Ashley Riches Baritone
Hertfordshire Chorus
David Temple conductor

*Soloist in Highland Home

Ein Deutsches Requiem
Johannes Brahms

Vier letzte Lieder (Four last songs)
Richard Strauss

Highland Home
Kurt Rosenberg

£30, £20, £10, £5 (schoolchildren and students)

Tickets will be available from the end of June.

Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem is one of the cornerstones of the classical choral repertoire. This large-scale setting of the Requiem Mass in German begins with prayers to the dead with words translated and shaped by Brahms himself. His approach reflects his sympathies with humanism as well as the comforts that can be found in the religious texts. The piece may have been inspired by his grief at the loss of his own mother and the death of Robert
Schumann.

The Vier Letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) are Strauss’s final completed works, composed in 1948 when he was 84. Inspired by poems by Joseph von Eichendorff and Hermann Hesse, they reflect the composer’s state of mind as he contemplated the end of his life. The solo soprano voice soars above the orchestra inviting the audience to share in feelings of sorrow and, finally, acceptance.

American composer Kurt Rosenberg composed Highland Home after a visit to Brodick castle on the Isle of Arran. He was captivated by the beauty of the rugged landscape and this magical piece is a homage to the country he fell in love with.