— C O N C E R T S —
Friday 19 September 2025, 9:00 pm
Concert 5: The Song of Songs
The candlelit interior of Drewsteignton Church creates a magical setting for vocal music exploring love poetry from The Song of Songs.
Corvus Consort’s varying combinations of a cappella voices will move around the atmospheric candlelit church, creating a shifting tapestry of vocal sound ranging from centuries-old music by Antoine Brumel and Raffaella Aleotti through to recent decades with Howard Skempton, Gabriel Jackson and Ola Gjeilo.
Towards the end of the programme, the masterful Renaissance polyphony of Tomás Luis de Victoria sits side by side with contemporary music by Jonathan Dove — Dove’s setting of the text Vadam et circuibo civitatem inspired directly by Victoria’s interpretation composed more than 400 years before.
Members of Corvus Consort will be joined by the Festival String Quartet for David Lang’s minimalist masterpiece Just (after Song of Songs), whose text is constructed from a list of “everything personal or owned that is attributed to the man and to the woman” in the Song.
The programme will also feature the premiere of a new work composed for Corvus Consort by Jamie Doe, who performs earlier in the evening across the road at The Long Room in WAF’s “Concert 4”, under the moniker The Magic Lantern.
Howard Skempton (b. 1947)
The Song of Songs
Antoine Brumel (c.1460-1512/13)
Sicut lilium inter spinas
Howard Skempton (b. 1947)
Rise up, my love
Raffaella Aleotti (c.1570-c.1646)
Surge, propera amica mea
Jamie Doe (b. 1985)
A Most Vehement Flame
Gabriel Jackson (b. 1962)
I am the Rose of Sharon
Ola Gjeilo (b. 1978)
Northern Lights
Jonathan Dove (b. 1959)
My Love is Mine
David Lang (b. 1957)
Just (after Song of Songs)
Tomás Luis de Victoria (c.1548-1611)
Vadam et circuibo civitatem (primo pars only)
Jonathan Dove (b. 1959)
Vadam et circuibo civitatem