About

An exciting opportunity awaits to hear Wells Cathedral Choir in concert, presenting some of the most sublime English choral music of the 20th century. The programme, Songs of Farewell, centres around C. Hubert H. Parry’s set of six motets of the same name, composed during the First World War towards the end of the composer's life.

These works rank among Parry’s most profound compositions, heavily influenced by the turmoil in Northern Europe, where several of his young students at the Royal College of Music were killed in action. Setting texts by poets such as Henry Vaughan, Thomas Campion, and John Donne, the motets explore themes of suffering, death, peace, and the promise of new life in a heavenly realm. Beginning with the well-known My soul, there is a country, the pieces grow increasingly complex, culminating in the double-choir setting of Psalm 39, Lord, let me know mine end.

Alongside Parry’s masterpiece, the programme includes music reflecting similar themes by Finzi (Lo, the full, final sacrifice), Stanford (For lo, I raise up), and William Harris’s transcendent Faire is the Heaven.