Spanish Mystics
Join us to experience the mystical music, literature and art of Spain’s Golden Age
Saturday 1 February at 7:30pm, St Saviour’s Church, St Albans.
Tomás Luis de Victoria: Vespers
Geoffrey Burgon: Dos Coros
Geoffrey Burgon: Nunc Dimittis
with readings from the writings of St Teresa of Ávila
and St John of the Cross
Louisa Kataria: saxophone
Conducted by John Gibbons
The Spanish mystics were influential reformers of the Roman Catholic Church in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain. They were also the authors of spiritual masterpieces, attempting to express in words the soul’s deep longing to be united with God.
Dos Coros (1975) by Geoffrey Burgon is a choral setting of two poems by St John of the Cross (1542-1591), widely considered to be the greatest of the Spanish mystic poets. St John and his spiritual mentor St Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) – herself a significant writer – founded new convents and monasteries throughout Spain dedicated to a simple, austere and meditative life.
Spanish mysticism also finds expression in the music of the greatest Spanish composer of the Golden Age of Polyphony, Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548-1611). The Second Vespers of the Feast of the Annunciation is a collection of ten significant pieces of sacred music devoted to the Virgin Mary, published in Rome between 1581 and 1583. They might have been used at the Vesper (evening) service on the Feast of the Annunciation (25 March).
We are delighted to welcome saxophonist Louisa Kataria to perform Geoffrey Burgon’s Nunc Dimittis with us. This piece was written in 1979 for the BBC’s acclaimed dramatization of John le Carré’s novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
The music will be interspersed with readings from the mystic poets while images by the great religious painter Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco) (1541-1614) – another Roman Catholic reformer and mystic – will be displayed.
Please join us afterwards for drinks and party nibbles in the church hall
Tickets £15 (£5 child/student)
Call 07570 454744 or e-mail tickets@stalbanschamberchoir.org.uk
or buy online at TicketSource
