Radio 3

Tenebrae joins the Britten Sinfonia for James MacMillan's Seven Last Words from the Cross. Recorded on the 28th March at St Martin-in-the-Fields, presented by Ian Skelly. Edmund Finnis: Hymn (After Byrd) Allegri: Miserere Barber: Adagio for Strings Victoria: Responsories (selection) Interval James MacMillan: Seven Last Words from the Cross Tenebrae Britten Sinfonia Nigel Short (conductor) Barber’s Adagio and Allegri’s Miserere prepare the way for James MacMillan’s great Passion meditation in this emotionally charged evening from Tenebrae and Britten Sinfonia. First heard in 1994, and recorded by Britten Sinfonia subsequently on Hyperion, MacMillan’s intense and emotionally-direct Passiontide setting has deservedly become a modern classic. It is performed here alongside a sequence of musical meditations from Nigel Short, Britten Sinfonia and Tenebrae - the virtuoso British chamber choir whose singing was described by one critic as “a kind of musical miracle”.