Choral group dedicate spring concert to the fallen of WWI

The 90-voice choir will begin with ‘For the Fallen’ by Sir Edward Elgar, taken from his Suite ‘Spirit of England’.

Elgar set the poem by Lawrence Binyon to music.

It contains the immortal passage: ‘They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old… at the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them’.

The first half concludes with the orchestra performing George Butterworth’s much loved orchestral idyll ‘The Banks of Green Willow’.

This is particularly poignant as Butterworth was killed during the Battle of the Somme and was awarded a posthumous MC for gallantry.

The main work of the evening is Johannes Brahms ‘Ein Deutsches Requiem’ – ‘A German Requiem’.

The choir will sing this in German beginning with ‘Blessed are they that mourn’ and concluding with ‘Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord’.

Brahms took passages from the Bible and set them to music and wished that his work be known as a ‘Requiem for all Humanity’.

John Langridge, the choir’s musical director, described the Requiem as: “Sublime and deeply moving.

“It is especially appropriate when we remember the images from those battlefields.”

The concert takes place at Christ Church, Silchester Road, St Leonards, beginning at 7.30 pm.

There will be a retiring collection in aid of The Royal British Legion.

Tickets are £15, which will includes a free interval drink, and can be bought on line from the choir’s website at www.battlechoral.co.uk. or from Raggs, Boutique, 20 High Street, Battle, and The Little Larder, 39 Norman Road, St Leonards.

Tickets can also be purchased by phoning 01424 870862 or 845219.

A free bus, sponsored by the choir, will depart the Market Square, Battle at 6.30pm and will return there after the concert.

Seats must be reserved by telephoning 01424 775730.