The event, on Saturday 20 June, was one of a series that have celebrated Christ Church’s quincentenary over the past year; this very special evening reminded us how integral music, and especially sacred choral music, has been to Christ Church life over the centuries.  

Guests were welcomed by a glass of superb South African chenin in the Masters Garden. The concert began, and ended, very appropriately with pieces by John Taverner, who was the Informator Choristarum of the newly-founded college from 1526 to 1530. Wolsey's statutes required three polyphonic votive antiphons to be sung daily after Compline. So we began with Taverner's Christe Jesu, pastor bone and ended with Mater Christe sanctissima, with in between his Western Wynde Mass ("Westron Wynde, when wylt thou blow" - a sentiment many of us have echoed in the heatwaves to follow!). All three richly demonstated the choir's radiant intensity and lyrical discipline.

There followed four pieces by composers, all with a close connection with Christ Church. A motet, Bring us, O Lord God, a setting of a text by John Donne, by William Harris, who was Organist of Christ Church from 1929 to 1933, wrapped the evening in a vision of heavenly bliss.  Judith Weir's 2021 setting  of George Herbert's poem A Wreath was written in memory of Edmund Bridges, who was a Lay Clerk in the choir until his tragically early death in 2018. It was a deeply moving tribute. William Walton was first a chorister and then an undergraduate at Christ Church. Chosen for this concert, and performed with full heart by the choir, was Walton's A Litany, originally composed when Walton was a teenager and later refined by the composer in 1930.

The climax of the evening was undoubtedly the first performance of the cantata The Shadow of the Sun by the American composer, Nico Muhly, who is Christ Church's inaugural Composer in Residence. The cantata, which was specially commissioned to mark the choir's 500th anniversary, is a multi-movement exploration of how poetry, art and especially stained glass can act as a membrane between the visible world and the divine. Its performance held the congregation rapt and was warmly greeted. The work will undoubtedly regularly enter the repertoire of future concerts.

The choir, led so ably by Peter Holder, Organist and Director of Music, demonstated once again that Christ Church remains one of the world's most distinguished and enduring musical foundations and that, through its excellence, music continues to be at the heart of life at Christ Church. It was a memorable occasion marked by a truly memorable concert.           

 Ian Plenderleith (1961, Classics)