Cecilia Consort sings tonight

The Cecilia Consort returns to St Nicholas’ Church, Newbury, tonight (Saturday) for their spring concert The Tragedy of Love: a performance of two heartrending stories; Carissimi’s oratorio Jephte and Purcell’s ) opera Dido and Aeneas. The concert will be the first to be directed by Patrick Craig since his appointment last summer as Cecilia’s associate conductor.
Jephte is Carissimi’s best- known composition. The story, told in Latin recitatives and choruses, is taken from the Book of Judges. Jephthah, General of the Israelites, makes a promise to God that if he grants him victory over the Ammonites he will sacrifice as a burnt offering the first thing to come out of the door of his house to meet him upon his return. Jephthah is victorious but on his return home it is his only child, a daughter, who first comes to greet him. He laments, tearing his clothes but declares he cannot break his promise to God. His daughter agrees to be offered up as a sacrifice but asks to be allowed to go into the mountains to bewail her virginity for two months before her death. She dies in shame because she must die childless; all Hebrew women strove to bear children, in the hopes that one of them might be the Messiah. After two months she returns home and her father keeps his promise by offering her up as a burnt sacrifice.
Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is among England’s oldest operas, written for a girl’s school in Chelsea and first performed in 1689. It tells the story (adapted from Virgil’s Aeneid) of Dido, Queen of Carthage, falling in love with Aeneas who lands in Carthage having been defeated in the Trojan war. Aeneas, however, is destined to go and be the founder of the Roman Empire. A sorceress and her accompanying witches living nearby, motivated by their hatred of Dido, remind Aeneas of his destiny and he sails off leaving Dido, who is heartbroken and commits suicide.
The Cecilia Consort is particularly pleased to welcome Andrew Carwood, director of music at St Paul’s Cathedral, as a soloist for this concert. Janet Coxwell and Don Greig will sing the other principal solos. Other solo parts in Dido and Aeneas will be sung by members of the Cecilia Consort and some of Janet Coxwell’s pupils, whilst the players are all local musicians.
The concert starts at 7.45pm. For tickets, telephone 07775 743445 (£15, children £5)