How lovely are thy dwellings fair
Johannes Brahms
How lovely are thy dwellings fair, O Lord of Hosts. My soul ever longeth and fainteth sore for the blest courts of the Lord; my heart and flesh do cry to God, cry to the living God. Blest are they that in Thy house are dwelling, they ever praise Thee, O Lord.
This translation from the German of the gloriously hopeful chorus from Brahms' German Requiem sets the theme for tonight's programme of romantic music for choir and piano. In each of tonight's pieces there is a longing for the sublime joy of heaven or an earnest prayer to be spared the pains and miseries of life and eternal damnation.
Just as we saw in our last concert how Renaissance music filled its architectural home with ringing instruments and polyphonic singing on a grand scale, so the opulent harmony and vast structures of the Romantic period suited admirably such solemn thoughts as man's mortal lot and his hope of Heaven. Although Liszt is not featured tonight, he expressed his own ideal for Romantic sacred music, which seems to describe well the duality of purpose in so much music of this time:
For want of a better term we may call the new music Humanitarian. It must be devotional, strong and drastic, uniting on a colossal scale the theatre and the church, at once dramatic and sacred, splendid and simple, ceremonial and serious, fiery and free, stormy and calm, translucent and emotional.
If you do not find all of these adjectives coming into your mind at some point this evening, then I am afraid your Romantic gene is missing, my friend!
Programme notes compiled by Sara Kemsley