Crickhowell Music Festival, 2024
Heaven Calling! A musical banquet that’s heaven-sent!
Friday 3rd – Monday 6th May at Clarence Hall and St Edmund’s Church
Welcome to our 28th Festival featuring extraordinary pieces by leading C17th and C18th composers that explore the mysteries of the creator spirit and its life-affirming force.
Saturday’s programme sees us celebrating music’s muse and patron, St Cecilia, who through her art could commune with angels, as we will make apparent during the performance of Purcell’s wonderful Ode for St Cecilia’s Day.
Complementing this comes a first performance in England and Wales of an overlooked masterpiece by Antonio Lotti. His Mass for 3 Choirs provides us with more marvellous insights into a composer’s creative imagination.
In contrast, Sunday’s concert focuses on two miraculous interventions in human history, with music for Pentecost and the Annunciation. Who better to capture the sudden outpouring of the spirit on the disciples than the great J.S. Bach in the joyous outbursts of his cantata O ewiges Feuer (O eternal fire). The surprising news brought by Gabriel to Mary that she was ‘with child’ receives an equally rapturous response in C.P.E. Bach’s setting of her song, the Magnificat. Hearing these two pieces by father and son side by side will add a further dimension to the programme.
Equally inspiring is our star lineup of soloists, which this year includes several of our former scholars who are now making a name for themselves on the professional circuit, as well as favourite voices that Festival fans will know from previous years, including Catherine King, Charles Daniels, James Hall and Robert Davies.
Monday’s Bank Holiday event is another tribute to former choral scholars. Originally written for students at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama by prize-winning composer and former Choral Society scholar Tomos Owen Jones, this setting of The Egg is something out of the ordinary. A search for the meaning of life itself, it charts an individual’s conversation with the Almighty in music that is both captivating and poignant. Don’t miss this one!
But Friday evening launches this year’s events literally on a high with ‘VRï’(translating as ‘up’), one of the Welsh folk scene’s most legendary bands. This amazing trio breathes new life into traditional songs with its unique mix of earthy dance tunes and classical poise. Expect the unexpected!
Already convinced? Go straight to the next bit. If you want to know more, scroll down and keep reading.
To buy tickets…
Click here for tickets, but you can also buy them from choir members, on the door, and at Webbs of Crickhowell.
Friday Welsh Folk Evening with VRï………….£12
Saturday and Sunday Concerts…….£20
Monday’s opera, The Egg (including tea)………..£10
Free entry for students and under 18s
(A booking fee of 50p per ticket is applied to online purchases. CCS will not offer refunds except in the event of a cancelled performance, when a refund will be offered on production of the ticket/s purchased. Online ticket purchases will be refunded automatically minus the booking fee. No tickets will be released for delivery or collection until payment has been received.)
Friday’s Welsh Folk Night featuring VRï
Friday 3rd May, 7.30pm at Clarence Hall, Crickhowell
Launching this year’s Festival in suitably high spirits is one of the Welsh folk scene’s class acts. With numerous 5-star reviews and awards, VRï have unearthed long-lost nuggets that shed new light on a vibrant folk tradition. These three exceptional musicians harness a rare aesthetic, pumping out their native foot-stomping dance tunes whilst maintaining the poise and finesse of a string quartet. It’s a cross-genre that’s hitherto unheard of in Wales and is guaranteed to hold you speechless!
Music’s Muse
Saturday 4th May, 7.30pm at St Edmund’s Church, Crickhowell
Purcell: Ode for St Cecilia’s Day: Hail bright Cecilia!
Lotti: Missa Vide Domine laborem meum (a first modern performance)
Festival Baroque Orchestra
Soloists: Áine Smith and Carys Davies (soprano); James Hall (alto); Charles Daniels (tenor); Robert Davies (bass)
Purcell paid homage to music’s patron saint with some exceptionally inspired writing, even by his high standards. His large-scale Ode for St Cecilia’s Day is a vocal tour de force for soloists and choir alike, extolling music’s divine virtues and power. Here the composer has much to live up to, with music being elevated to a primary source of the universe and “soul of the world” whilst different instruments give perfect expression to the human condition.
A composer’s vital creative spark is also very much in evidence in Antonio Lotti’s highly original mass setting, Vide Domine laborem meum. It’s title (Behold my work O Lord) is apt, since this piece certainly seems worthy of heavenly attention!
It also perfectly fulfils our Festival’s original remit to showcase “exciting and neglected repertoire” and as one of its first modern performances, it provides an exciting focus to our programme. Lotti’s kaleidoscopic interplay of various solo and choral groupings throughout his mass is a clear reminder for listeners that he wrote much of his music for the splendours of St Mark’s, Venice.
Surprising Revelations!
Sunday 5th May, 7.30pm at St. Edmund’s Church, Crickhowell
C.P.E. Bach: Magnificat
Pergolesi: Dixit Dominus
J.S. Bach: Whitsun Cantata BWV 34, O ewiges Feuer
Arvo Pärt: Veni Sancte Spiritus
Festival Baroque Orchestra
Soloists: Áine Smith and Carys Davies (soprano); Catherine King (alto); Charles Daniels (tenor); Robert Davies (bass)
Tonight the unexpected gifts given to the disciples at Pentecost and to Mary at the Annunciation find their perfect expression in musical settings by a Bach family double-act: father, Johann Sebastian and son, Carl Philipp Emanuel, both giant composers of their time. If J.S. Bach’s Cantata captures the pure joy of the disciples’ spiritual awakening, then C.P.E. Bach’s Magnificat is both ebullient and dramatic. Intriguingly, the younger man’s work also pays homage by referencing his father’s own setting.
In our bid to bring hidden gems into the light we programme another neglected choral masterpiece from the pen of Pergolesi. This composer’s pioneering style prefigures Mozart’s own and seems perfectly suited to a setting of the Psalm Dixit Dominus, which is full of messianic prophecies.
Amidst the energetic crossfire of these pieces we’ll also experience a “still small voice of calm”, by courtesy of Arvo Pärt’s setting of “Come Holy Spirit” from his Berliner Mass. Nirvana at last!
May Street Opera
Monday May 6th, 3pm at Clarence Hall, Crickhowell
Tomos Owen Jones: The Egg chamber cantata
Benjamin Britten: Canticle: Abraham and Isaac
With: Maisie Rae O’Shea (Soprano); Molly Beere (Mezzo-soprano); Amy Reynolds (Piano)
Tomos Owen Jones – Tenor and Conductor
Instrumentalists – from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama
Complementing the heavenly call of our Festival theme, we present The Egg, a one-act chamber cantata based on Andy Weir’s famous short story, “You were on your way home when you died”. This is an uplifting tale that describes the human condition, from life to death and beyond. Full of wit and insight, Tom’s piece charts an individual’s intriguing tutorial with his creator in music that is both lyrical and enchanting.
This is performed alongside Britten’s Canticle II, a dramatic retelling of the Old Testament story of Abraham and Isaac.