10.30am
Cathedral Festival Eucharist
Worcester Cathedral Choir Worcester Cathedral Chamber Choir
Worcester Cathedral
Entrance: Free

Vaughan Williams - Mass in G Minor
Messiaen - O sacrum convivium

Vaughan William's esteem for traditions allowed the composer, a professed atheist (later a content agnostic) total comfort in composing music for the church. His Mass has musical links with his ‘pastoral' works of the 1920's and is full of the rich harmonies associated with the composer in his most 'English summertime' moments. It could be argued that the Mass in G minor was the first substantial, unaccompanied setting to be written with a distinctly English voice since the time of William Byrd in the sixteenth century.

As one of France's great organists, Messiaen brought the organ's ability to sustain sound at the slowest possible tempo into the realm of the orchestra and chorus. O sacrum convivium! is a relatively early work, and among Messiaen's shortest larger-scale works. The slow tempo and unequal rhythm combine to give the work a timeless quality which makes it seem far grander than its five-minute length would otherwise imply; the harmony, with its succession of added-note chords, at a faster tempo might also suggest jazz.