A bit of culture

I thoroughly enjoyed my ‘bit of culture’ at Paisley Abbey last night. I’m a complete numpty when it comes to ‘real’ choral stuff, so it was good to get a bit of an education last night. As you’ll have gathered from yesterday’s post, I didn’t even realise that Szymanowski was a composer!

I learned that Berlioz was an agnostic but he wrote ‘Te Deum’  in 1849 as a hymn of praise. It’s kind of weird, if you ask me, that someone who was so sceptical about the existence of God should write a hymn to praise the big guy up in the sky! And, I learned that Szymanowski wrote ‘Stabat Mater’ in 1925 using lyrics based on a 13^th century poem which tells the story of the anguish of Jesus’s mum as she watched him being crucified.  

The City of Glasgow Chorus, The Glasgow Youth Choir and The Orchestra of Scottish Opera performed both pieces beautifully and - even though I’m a complete heathen - I found them really moving. A combination of the setting (the gorgeous Paisley Abbey),  seeing one of our choir buddies in amongst such a prestigious group of singers, the beautiful voices  and the company of my lovely mum and the lovely Christine all combined to make it a really great evening.

Here’s a wee piece of Te Deum ('Judex crederis' - get me!); it's not the City of Glasgow Chorus, but I can assure you that they sang it just as beautifully as this crew from You tube: