Brighton Festival Chorus and Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra join forces for an unforgettable evening of music on Saturday 18 July at 7.30pm at All Saints Church, Hove, centred on Herbert Howells’ monumental masterpiece, Hymnus Paradisi.
Conducted by James Morgan, the concert brings together the acclaimed Brighton Festival Chorus, Brighton Festival Youth Choir and Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, with distinguished soloists Emma Tring (soprano), Thomas Elwin (tenor) and Caroline Harrison (viola).
Exploring themes of nature, loss, hope and transcendence, the programme opens with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus, one of the composer’s most beloved orchestral works. Inspired by the English folk melody of the same name, it was originally commissioned for the British Council in 1939 and later performed at Vaughan Williams’ funeral in 1958.
The programme continues with Herbert Howells’ deeply personal Elegy for Viola and String Orchestra, a poignant meditation on grief and remembrance featuring solo viola. A special addition to the evening is Nature’s Lament, an original work by students of BHASVIC, reflecting contemporary concerns about the climate crisis through fresh, imaginative musical voices that offer both challenge and hope.
Following the interval comes the evening’s centrepiece: Hymnus Paradisi, widely regarded as one of the greatest choral works of the twentieth century. Written in the aftermath of profound personal tragedy, the work transforms sorrow into radiant consolation, blending chorus and orchestra in music of extraordinary emotional depth, luminous beauty and spiritual power.
Following its first performance in 1950, music critic Frank Howes described the work as “the blaze of a thousand suns … at last … the light of dawn” – a testament to the overwhelming emotional journey that has made Hymnus Paradisi one of Herbert Howells’ defining achievements.
Set within the magnificent acoustic of All Saints Church, Hove, this richly atmospheric programme promises an evening of exceptional music-making that speaks to both the present moment and the enduring resilience of the human spirit.
The concert was made possible by the initiative of one of Brighton Festival Chorus’s Tenors, Alastair Deighton. Inspired by a lifelong love of Howells, and Hymnus Paradisi specifically, Alastair cycled an incredible 265 miles in less than 24 hours taking in key places in Howells’ life and work: from Barnes, where the composer lived for half his life, to the Howells commemorative window in Gloucester Cathedral, to Howells’ birthplace in Lydney and ending at the room where he taught at the Royal College of Music. Alastair said, “I was given a disc of Hymnus Paradisi as an impressionable 16-year-old and, shortly after turning (a still impressionable) 50, it is a joy to sing it at last. One writer referred to this as a requiem in which the departed leaves us not in mid-winter but in high summer. The mix of searing, blazing loss, love and defiance speaks to all of us in both beautiful whispers and transcendent floods of light. I hope you will join us for this special evening”