Brisbane Chorale

Brisbane Chorale, with conductor Emily Cox AM and soloists, present a moving programme of sacred choral music perfectly suited to the vaulted spaces of St John’s Cathedral.

Our two main works are by two acclaimed composers, Liszt and Verdi, with two very different personalities – one a celebrated and charismatic virtuoso pianist, the other a revered opera composer. But they also composed powerful sacred choral music.

Verdi’s Te Deum is the most well-known of his Four Sacred Pieces (Quattro pezzi sacri). Composed in 1896, the Te Deum was his second last composition – a dramatic setting of the ancient hymn text, with outbursts of grandeur and hushed pleas for deliverance. The Te Deum was Verdi’s favourite of the Four Sacred Pieces, and he reputedly wanted to be buried with the score.

Liszt’s Via Crucis, written in the last decade of his life, is arguably his most important sacred work. Inspired by a Good Friday procession in the Colosseum during Liszt’s stay in Rome which made a profound impression, Via Crucis, for soloists, choir and organ, is a majestic and vivid musical depiction of the 14 Stations of the Cross and the road to Calvary.

Two powerfully expressive works performed in an inspirational setting – voices and organ resounding in Brisbane’s beautiful St John’s Cathedral.

To round out this programme of spiritual music we also have two beautiful shorter works: Brahms Geistliches Lied (“Let nothing afflict you with grief”), and Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine (“Word of the Highest, our only hope”).

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