top of page
  • Facebook Social Icon
  • Twitter Social Icon
CC-Avatars-banner-15-x-3.jpg
N E W S  &  E V E N T S​
Of You My Heart Has Spoken image portrait.jpg

Of You My Heart Has Spoken

​

A journey from the dark of night

to the dawn of a new day

 

Salisbury Chamber Chorus presents a special one-off concert marking... /more

​​

Saturday 15 March 2025

St Mary & St Nicholas Church,

Wilton SP2 0DL

​​

​

Simon McEnery, Director 

John Cuthbert, Piano

​

Tickets £18, under-18s free

using link below, or on the door

​​

​Two numbers from this concert feature on our YouTube channel, see below

​

​​

Bernstein-Poulenc-reviews.jpg
DSC00452_edited.jpg
DSC00457_edited.png
Nine Angels recording ad.jpg
Anchor 2
Of You My Heart Has Spoken image portrait.jpg

Of You My Heart Has Spoken

 

A journey from the dark of night

to the dawn of a new day

 

​Simon McEnery, Director

John Cuthbert, Piano

Saturday 15 March, 2025

St Mary & St Nicholas Church,

Wilton SP2 0DL

​

Tickets £18.00 - under-18s free -

using link below, or on the door

Of You My Heart Has Spoken

​

A journey from the dark of night to the dawn of a new day

 

Salisbury Chamber Chorus presents a special one-off concert marking not just the transition of winter to spring, or a Lenten contemplation, or a journey from night to day, but an exploration of how, with all our fears and anxieties, we can travel hopefully into the future.

 

‘Of You My Heart Has Spoken’ - the music bit

 

This concert has been conceived as a journey from night to day, winter to spring, dark to light, Lent to Easter. Consequently the music is decidedly eclectic. There’s classic bits of Rheinberger and Purcell (Abendlied and Hear My Prayer) alongside the very dark ending of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina for the gloomier side, plus a bit of Deanna Durbin (sung by me) and a song based on a children’s book (Goodnight Moon), while the more cheerful half includes Grieg’s Spring, a Scottish folk song (sung by our pianist John Cuthbert), and the Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana. The concert is going to be entirely in English on this occasion, to emphasise the thematic sequence. And a ‘curated’ concert like this also gives us a chance to programme a couple of historic women composers whose work is finally receiving greater recognition.

 

Featured composers: Haydn, Purcell, Rheinberger, Mascagni, Balfour Gardiner, Wagner, McEnery, Rafaella Aleotti, Lauridsen, Whitacre, Sara Bareilles, Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, Marianna Martines, Frank Loesser, Arne, Mussorgsky/Stravinsky, Cuthbert, Grieg, Mattsson.

 

Two numbers from the concert feature on our YouTube page:

‘When All Of This Is Over’

‘Abendlied’ 

​

 

‘Of You My Heart Has Spoken’ - the Lent bit

 

When we decided to schedule a one-off concert in Wilton Church this March, various questions and opportunities about church concerts in Lent came into my head. Some churches (not Wilton!) are very censorious about what can and can’t be performed at certain times, but it does no harm for choirs and their directors to think about where and when concerts take place.

 

Salisbury Chamber Chorus is used to putting on programmes of big choral works or celebrations of certain composers, and loves coming to Wilton, but I think this is the first time we have decided to make the most of the opportunity in this way. I have been involved in various ‘liturgical sequences’ where music and words combine to reflect a church season, so I decided to adapt that idea for this concert.

 

While it’s not a service at all, and while it features secular as well as sacred music, the thread of the concert is a very Lenten one, beginning with an antiphon for Lent 2 (Of you my heart has spoken), and moving through themes of sadness and loss, winter and night via pieces like Rheinberger’s Abendlied (Evening song) and Purcell’s Hear my prayer. The first half finishes on a bleak note: the closing chorus of Mussorgsky’s opera Khovanshchina is the Old Believers’ prayer for salvation as they await execution by Tsar Peter the Great.

 

It’s not all bleak. Among the secular numbers are a beautiful song from TV show Only Murders In The Building (sung by Meryl Streep in the show), a number popularised by Deanna Durbin, a Scottish fishermen’s song, and a setting by Eric Whitacre of the text of children’s book Goodnight Moon. And to emphasise the importance of the words in this concert, we’ve decided to sing everything in English.

 

The second half begins to look to Easter, with themes of spring, new life, the dawn of a new day, hope for the future. Amid the spring-themed Haydn and Grieg, there are also sacred pieces by two historic women composers who are finally gaining more attention, Rafaella Aleotti and Marianna Martines. But we must also apologise to the purists. Our nod to the coming of Easter breaks out into a couple of premature celebrations, including the Easter Hymn from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Even so, given our theme of future hope in times of darkness, we think our audience will forgive us. And we hope that both those in our audience looking for a Lenten contemplation and those looking for a concert to herald lighter days will find something for them here.

 

‘Of you my heart has spoken: seek his face. It is your face, O Lord, that I seek. Remember your compassion, O Lord, and your merciful love.’

Anchor 3
CC logo 2021_edited.png

© 2023 by Salisbury Chamber Chorus. Registered Charity No. 1161010.

bottom of page