BBC CO: Easter at King's: R3 in Concert Friday 25 March

[doversoul1]

Stephen Cleobury conducts the BBC Singers and BBC Concert Orchestra live from the Easter at King's Festival in Cambridge. The programme includes music by Palestrina and Schubert, and ends with Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ, which was composed in 1783 for the Good Friday Service at Oratorio de la Santa Cueva in Cadiz, Spain. Presented by Donald Macleod.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0745cz8

(Not sure how much of it is/was ‘choir’)

[aeolium]

I thought this choral version of the Seven Last Words was so much less powerful than the quartet version played as part of the EBU Holy Music day. It's strange as this oratorio version was arranged in the 1790s, around the time of the Paukenmesse and just before the composition of The Creation. The original 1786 version of the Seven Last Words was for orchestra and it was a pity that we did not hear that setting (with Haydn's introduction and "earthquake" postscript) rather than this slightly disappointing choral setting.

[ardcarp]

Yes but the logic of the programming was:

-choir item
-orchestral item
interval
-both together item.

I agree it's not up with the best of his Masses.