Shakespeare provides the connection in this programme which brings together two languages – German and English – and two centuries – 19th and 20th. His universal genius beguiled not only Ralph Vaughan Williams (Shakespeare Songs) but also Johannes Brahms, whose Four Songs op. 17, for women’s voices, organ, harp and two horns, are considered marvels of the Romantic choral repertoire. We have the same sensuality in Mendelssohn’s choruses, with the ecstatic song of the dove (solo soprano) of the motet Hör mein Bitten.

The Britten Choir and the young professionals of the Young Symphony Chorus will also perform MacMillan’s Song of the Lamb and Gustav Holst’s lively choruses inspired by the Rig-Véda, a collection of sacred Indo-European hymns. In addition to accompanying this programme on the Auditorium organ Denis Comtet offers us a bonus with the most moving of Brahms’ twelve choral works, Herzlich tut mich verlangen, and Mendelssohn’s Third Organ Sonata, which begins majestically and ends in the darkness of a quasi Mozartian Andante.