Au Printemps Duruflé Requiem
Bach Choir
Conductor: David Hill, Organ: Philip Scriven. Mezzo soprano: Katherine Gregory
Holy Trinity, Sloane Square, 19 March 2026
Katharine, Duchess of Kent famously sang with the Bach Choir for nearly 25 years and she taught music for 13 years in a Hull primary school. She became passionate about music education and co-founded Future Talent, a charity to support talented young musicians from low-income families. She died last year. Attended by the Duke and other family members, this concert was a memorial to her.
The almost entirely programme French programme was thematically rooted in Gregorian Chant. We began with a series of musical hors-d’oeuvres of which Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine was the best known. The sound of the Bach Choir in the rich, lofty acoustic of Holy Trinty, is stunning. Hill’s trademark baton-less conducting style coaxed soaring power from the singers especially in Poulenc’s Litanies a la Vierge Noire sung by all female voices with lovely work from the chamber groups within the soprano and alto sections. Organist Philp Scriven played Pamela Decker’s reflective Jesu, dulcis memoria, influenced by Messiaen, so that it resounded evocatively round the glorious Arts and Crafts building especially in the engaging fugue. The first half ended with Poulenc’s Quatre Motets pour un temps du penitence – chosen, perhaps, because the Duchess of Kent converted to Catholicism in mid-life. It was movingly and hauntingly sung especially the Verdi-influenced, operatic Tristis est anima mea. I was struck by how challenging it must be to sing those relatively unfamiliar Latin words (“crucifixissent” “amaritudinem”) but of course this fine choir delivered every syllable with dynamic precision and elegant diction.
The post-interval main course comprised Duruflé’s Requiem (1947) in the version for organ and choir. And it came with a great deal of the requisite shimmering mystery, angst and beauty. Hill ensured that the glorious climaxes erupted, especially in the Kyrie, Katherine Gregory made a fine job of Pie Jesu, her voice burgundy rich on her bottom notes and demonstrating phenomenal control in the moving ending as it died away. The muscularity of Libera Me made a striking contrast and the final In Paradisium came with the tender top notes gently echoing round the building.
It was a memorable concert which managed to splice joy and celebration with reverence and remembrance, I hope they collected plenty of generous donations to Future Talent.
