Welcome to the first event of the Online Series of the Boxgrove Choral Festival 2021!

Boxgrove Priory will resound to renaissance polyphony from the Spanish tradition sung by The Beaufort Singers. Both works are for Holy Saturday, the third day of the Holy Triduum, very close to the glories of Easter Day.

Alonso Lobo’s setting of the Lamentations for this day are rightly celebrated as one of the great masterpieces of this style. The Hebrew letters that delineate the text are used as moments of contemplation and repose, with Lobo losing the listener in melisma. This is contrasted with the short bursts of declamation in the verses.

Following this work, the Victoria will seem simpler given the mostly four part texture rather than mostly six. However, this helps to deliver a more concentrated mode of expression, a greater intensity and a greater intelligibility of the extraordinary Latin texts.