The concert will celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of the NFM Boys’ Choir, and at the same time will be an encounter with the story of Saint Nicholas. The main point of the programme will be the performance of Benjamin Britten’s cantata dedicated to this saint. The evening will begin with a performance of another work by Britten: Missa brevis in D major for choir and organ, and the repertoire also features compositions by Polish composers.

In Britten’s opinion music should reach the widest possible audience. Over the years, he composed works that engaged the youngest generations of performers. One of them is Missa brevis in D major, written in 1959 for boys singing in the choir Westminster Cathedral in London and dedicated to its music director, George Malcolm. It consists of four movements and is one of Britten’s first works to a Latin text. It delights with the originality of the musical setting, starting from the resplendent sounds of the Kyrie. The lively melody of the voices is constantly emphasised by the deep timbre of the organ, whose part functions not so much as an accompaniment, but as an equally important and fully-fledged melodic line.

The cantata Saint Nicholas was created over ten years before the Missa brevis. Britten wrote it in 1948 on commission from Lancing College in Sussex to celebrate the centenary of the school. It is the first of twelve pieces by Britten intended  for amateurs, and the cantata requires only a few professional musicians, whose parts constitute the core of the composition. As the title suggests, it tells the story of Saint Nicholas, the bishop of Myra, from his birth to his death. It does not illustrate the life of a figure shaped by pop culture, associated with sleighs filled to the brim with gifts and pulled by reindeer, but draws attention to the not unfrequently dramatic fortunes of one of the most venerated saints and Christian patrons.

The December concert will be an opportunity to listen to works by Polish, contemporary artists. The shared feature the presented pieces will be sacred themes. Among them will be Laudate Dominum omnes gentes by Grzegorz Miśkiewicz, composed specially for the NFM Boys’ Choir, Gloria for three mixed choirs, two children’s choirs and a chamber orchestra by Michał Ziółkowski and the premiere performance of Canticum trium puerorum by Marek Raczyński.