While grade listed Chester Cathedral is celebrated as a spiritual hub for the city holding regular services, it has also earned a reputation as a first-class events venue. From its lofty vaulted ceilings and intricate architecture, it provides and impressive environment with exemplary acoustics that are perfect for live performances.
This June, a candlelit concert at the cathedral will see the accomplished London Concertante provide an evening of violin music led by arguably Antonio Vivaldi’s best-known concerti “The Four Seasons”. The baroque masterpiece will be accompanied by another beloved violin composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams, “The Lark Ascending”.
The Four Seasons concerti provide a musical expression for each season and were composed by Vivaldi during his tenure in Mantua, when he served as court chapel master but published in Amsterdam in 1725. A revolutionary musical concept, which would later be known as “program music”, the concerti of spring, summer, autumn and winter featured accompanying sonnets and musically represented an eclectic selection of natural elements, including different species of singing birds, flowing creeks, buzzing flies, barking dogs, storms and winter fires.
Vaughan Williams originally wrote “A Lark Ascending” for piano and violin. However, the English composer refashioned the “romance” for orchestra and solo violin in 1921.
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and The Lark Ascending by Candlelight will now be performed on Friday, June 21 at Chester Cathedral. The violin concert will start at 7.30 pm, and the cathedral can be found on St Werburgh Street in Chester.
