The NFM Choir, under the baton of the French conductor Mathieu Romano, will perform works by composers representing various styles. This evening, we will hear pieces by Franz Schubert and Johannes Brahms, but also by Samuel Barber and Benjamin Britten. Michał Rot will accompany the singers the piano.

The concert will begin with the work of Philippe Hersant, a contemporary French composer – Poèmes chinois du VIIIe siècle, a musical setting of Chinese poems from the eighth century AD. Its first movement – De loin en loin – will precede a fragment of Herbert Howells' Requiem. Although it was composed in 1932, its score was not published until almost fifty years later. The premature death of the composer’s son cast a shadow over the creative process, and the tragedy that touched the artist pours out of the sounds of the work. Howells uses the texts of psalms and fragments of the Catholic and Anglican liturgy for the deceased. We will also hear Aufblick from the song collection Sechs geistliche Lieder by Hugo Wolf, a piece written to the words of the German poet Joseph von Eichendorff. This cycle was created in 1881. It is full of suffering caused by unreciprocated love.

This evening’s choral repertoire will be intertwined with masterpieces of piano literature by Johannes Brahms – including the Ballade in G minor and the Intermezzo in A major op.118. They will be complemented by the romantic Night Piece by Benjamin Britten. The programme also includes his a cappella choral song – Waldesnacht op. 62 no. 3. The other featured pieces are Des Tages Weihe op. 146 by Franz Schubert, Sure on this Shining Night by Samuel Barber and Friede auf Erden (Peace on Earth) op. 13 by Arnold Schönberg, whose intriguing harmonic idiom was developed around extended tonality.