The Marian Consort explores music of extraordinary beauty and hidden meaning from Renaissance Portugal.

The Marian Consort explores music of extraordinary beauty and hidden meaning from Renaissance Portugal.

Themes of flowers and gardens, both actual and allegorical, run through this programme which travels from Renaissance Spain to the 21st Century via the music of Benjamin Britten.

William Byrd, arguably the greatest of English Renaissance composers, lived and worked as a Catholic in England at a time when to do so meant constantly courting danger. Despite this, Byrd wrote a huge amount of music for the Catholic liturgy and this programme is woven around his unforgettable 4-part mass.

The Marian Consort sings both familiar works and rarer gems by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina alongside masterpieces by his Roman predecessors, students and successors, revealing the network of musical and personal connections underlying these astonishing pieces.

The radiant voices of The Marian Consort combine with the expert players of leading baroque orchestra Spiritato for a performance of two of Bach’s most exquisite Cantatas and the extraordinary Mass in G major.