For its Spring concert and very appropriate for the Lenten season Exeter Festival Chorus will be presenting a programme entitled ‘Miserere’ in St Michael’s on Saturday 6th April at 7.30pm.

The sorrows and suffering of Mary, mother of Christ, are the inspiration for this concert. Allegri’s famous ‘Miserere’ is a penitential psalm for the Tenebrae services before Easter. Poulenc’s atmospheric ‘Litanies à la Vierge Noire’ for women’s voices were inspired by a pilgrimage to the shrine of the Black Virgin of Rocamadour. Barber’s ‘Agnus Dei’, his own choral arrangement of the Adagio for Strings, is followed by the London-based Russian Alexander Levine’s ‘Morning Prayer,’ celebrating the life of a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Alexander Men, assassinated for his beliefs.

The concert ends with Scarlatti’s ‘Stabat Mater,’ his virtuoso setting of the 13th century hymn to the mother of Christ, as she stands at the foot of the cross, beholding her son’s crucifixion. The choir will be conducted by its long serving director, Nigel Perrin, with Peter Adcock playing the organ. This is the choir’s first concert in St Michael’s, although it recorded its Christmas CD, ‘The Time of Snow’ there in 2005.

Tickets (£18 unreserved; Students £5; Children (under 18) £1) are available either online at www.exeterfestivalchorus.org.uk, or in person or by phone from Exeter Tickets, Dix’s Field, Exeter: 01392 665885.

Alastair Logan