Cirencester Choral Society celebrates the work of Haydn, Hummel and Mozart (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Cirencester Choral Society celebrates the work of Haydn, Hummel and Mozart with Cirencester Parish Church concert

4:30pm Thursday 26th April 2012 in What's On

THE May concert by Cirencester Choral Society this year celebrates the work of three great Austrian composers: Haydn, Hummel and Mozart. These three musical stars were all born in the 18th century and they took Europe by storm.

Mozart (b 1756) lived only into his thirties but managed to compose an amazing range of music. He took on the eight-year-old Hummel (b 1778) as a pupil and, when only nine, Hummel appeared in one of Mozart's concerts. Like Mozart, Hummel's career also developed at a frantic pace, with tours of Europe and, when in London, having lessons from Clementi. By the age of 15 he was back in Vienna, studying composition with Salieri and Mozart.

The musical life of Haydn (b 1732) also started early, with his being sent to St Stephen's Cathedral School in Vienna at the age of eight and later touring Europe and spending time in England, not just in London but also visiting Oxford. There he performed one of the 12 symphonies he composed in England and was awarded a Music Doctorate. Whilst in London, Haydn taught the young Hummel and is said to have given the boy a guinea gratuity for a public performance of one of his piano sonatas.

The concert will feature Haydn's Stabat Mater, Hummel's Mass in B flat and, as an introductory piece, one of Mozart's settings of Tantum Ergo. With conductor Carleton Etherington, the Corinium Camerata and, appropriately, an international quartet of award-winning young soloists from London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Australian soprano Sky Ingram, English tenor Adam Smith, German baritone Benjamin Appl and Ukrainian mezzo-soprano Anna Starushkevych, this celebration of music by the young stars is an event not to be missed.

The concert is on Saturday, May 5 at 7.30pm in Cirencester Parish Church. Tickets at £12, with concessions for students and children, are available from Cirencester's Visitor Centre, choir members or at www.cirencester-choral-soc.org.uk