The Octavian Singers are hard at work rehearsing for our next concert, which we will be performing at St Mary the Virgin in Horsell, and we have been preparing a lovely selection of Christmas music from a range of composers.

Our concert on 30th November takes place just as the Advent season commences and we will begin the performance with J S Bach’s cantata for Advent Sunday, Wachet Auf. You may not think that you are likely to know this, but it has a very well-known organ accompaniment! Our sopranos have the chorale theme throughout (known to some as the hymn Zion Hears the Watchmen’s Voices) and the other vocal sections have all the complicated music, for once!

The Messe de Minuit by Marc-Antoine Charpentier was composed around 1690, probably for the church in Paris where he worked. It consists of several French carols (“noels”) woven into the settings of the Mass movements and is the only example of a complete Mass setting based around these folk tunes that would have been well-known at the time. It gives the Mass a lively, dance-like quality, and includes several short solos and some organ sections.

We also include some shorter works in our concert - There shall a star from Jacob come forth is a section from an unfinished oratorio, Christus, by Felix Mendelssohn and, like the Bach cantata, it includes the use of a well-known Lutheran chorale hymn (which is sung today as How brightly shines the morning star). We have two works by women composers - Alison Willis, a living composer, and Rafaella Aleotti, who was an organist and nun based in Ferrara in the 16th Century - plus a short piece by Ulysses Kay, an African-American composer of the 20th Century, which demonstrates his modal melodic style in setting the traditional words As Joseph was a-walking.

We look forward to welcoming you at the very start of the festive season!