Parry's Songs of Farewell

Krista Audere, Latvian conductor and winner of the 2021 Eric Ericson Award for best young choral conductor, returns to direct the BBC Singers in an a cappella concert exploring themes of nature, loss, farewell and remembrance.

The first half of the concert looks to renewal and the natural world, pairing American composer Caroline Shaw’s Companion Planting with one of Palestrina’s earliest works, his radiant Missa Sicut lilium inter spinas. Companion Planting is a playful, earthy take on mutual growth and interdependence – a sonic metaphor for ecological balance. Palestrina's contemplative mass draws from 'As the lily among the thorns' from the Song of Songs.

After the interval, the BBC Singers perform Hubert Parry’s Songs of Farewell, his profoundly moving cycle of wartime laments for a lost age. Confronted by both the devastation of the First World War and by his own declining health, Parry poured his response into six luminous choral motets steeped in nostalgia and grief, and widely regarded as some of the most powerful music he ever wrote.

Recorded earlier this month at St Martin in the Fields in London, and presented by Ian Skelly.

Caroline Shaw: Companion Planting
Palestrina: Missa Sicut lilium inter spinas
Parry: Songs of Farewell

BBC Singers
Krista Audere (conductor)

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