Our March concert will feature music from early nineteenth century German and French composers with a distinct Shakespearean thread running through it. Berlioz’s La mort d'Ophélie describes the drowning of Ophelia in Hamlet, while Beethoven’s Coriolan overture depicts the demise of the Roman leader, Coriolanus.
Brahms’s poignant Alto Rhapsody sets part of Goethe’s poem Harzreise im Winter and gives the basses plenty to do, and the concert is rounded off with Beethoven's magnificent Mass in C. The latter work, Beethoven’s first mass, has grown in popularity and critical acceptance since its shaky beginnings in 1807.