Our Current Repertoire
What makes singing and performing so interesting for both choir members and our audiences is the contrasting range, styles and genres of our music.
Our Musical Director, Christopher Hann puts together, teaches and conducts the repertoire which the choir then learn to perfection. The repertoire is regularly updated with new pieces and other pieces dropped over time. This keeps our repertoire fresh and exciting to listen to.
Here are some examples of pieces we have been singing recently:
- O Nata Lux
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Date Posted: Mon, 5 Jan 2026
_image_1A.jpg "O Nata Lux")
Lucy Walker's setting of O Nata Lux de Lumine (O Light born of Light) was commissioned by the Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge, to commemorate the occasion of Candlemas.
Audiences often comment on how much they like this piece and it has also become a firm favourite of many of our choir members.
Echoing the C10th text, the motet is rich in light imagery, the recurring motif, first heard at the opening of the piece, unfolds from a single pitch into glowing harmonic colours. After a luminous climax where the texture reaches its widest span, with a soaring soprano solo, the piece ends by returning cyclically to the meditative state of the opening, fading to a single note once more.
- Bring us, O Lord God
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Date Posted: Mon, 5 Jan 2026
Harris's Bring us, O Lord God and its sister work Faire is the Heaven are two of the most rewarding anthems for double choir in the Anglican canon. This piece was composed in 1959, not long before Harris's retirement from a distinguished career as a teacher and director of music. The textural mastery that Harris achieves in the work are testament to his tireless efforts at the musical helm of institutions such as New College and Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and St George's Chapel, Windsor. It is widely regarded as a profound, "stunning" choral achievement. The text is from a sermon by John Donne, a priest and poet:
Bring us, O Lord God, at our last awakening, into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity; in the habitations of thy glory and dominion world without end. Amen.
Donne’s words are about death and are often read as a prayer at funerals. But it is far from morbid. Donne flips death, often euphemistically referred to as “falling asleep”, and calls it “our last awakening”. We awake to God in heaven to find that we are no longer pulled by the binary opposites of darkness and dazzling, noise and silence, fears and hopes, ends and beginnings. Instead, we will find all things in balance, with composure, harmony and constancy. We will be at peace, free of struggle.
It has been said that Donne gives us a glimpse of heaven through his sublime words, and that Harris reveals even more of its wonder in his setting for double choir: the synergistic combination of words and music shimmers in holy serenity. We are drawn into the prayer’s ‘one equal music’.
Bring us, O Lord God was composed for unaccompanied double choir, featuring lush, intertwining harmonic lines. This use of eight-part vocal counterpoint creates a sound perfectly suited for cathedral acoustics. The piece is now a cornerstone of the choral repertoire and is praised for its "thick-textured" and "ardently emotional" style, focusing on a "radiant picture" of heaven. The anthem builds to a "grand, resplendent climax" before transitioning into a "mystical" and "magical" set of concluding 'Amens'.
- Richte Mich, Gott
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Date Posted: Sun, 19 Oct 2025
Richte mich Gott is one of three German-language psalms Mendelssohn wrote in 1843. After all three were performed he then then revised them in 1844-1845 and they were published as a set in 1849, shortly after Mendelssohn's death.
Richte mich Gott is an 8-voice setting of Psalm 43. Many 8-voice motets are written for double chorus (2 groups of SATB), but this motet is for a single 8-voice ensemble (SSAATTBB), clearly deviating from the common approach of separating the music into two equal SATB choirs, Mendelssohn chose to separate the ensemble by 'voice' parts, often writing for the men’s voices alone or the women’s voices alone.
The piece opens with contrasting alternate sections from the lower and upper voices, coming together for the grand "Send your light and your truth." before separating again before finale of the motet.
- Hymne à la Vierge
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Date Posted: Sun, 6 Jul 2025
Pierre Villette's Hymne à la Vierge for unaccompanied Mixed Choir was completed in 1954, based on a poem by Roland Bouheret.
Pierre Villette was a contemporary of Pierre Boulez at the Conservatoire National Superieure de Musique in Paris. Villette was prolific in many fields of composition - vocal, orchestral and instrumental. Brought up in the choir school tradition - he was a chorister at Rouen Cathedral - his extensive output of church music consists mainly of motets and small-scale works for chamber ensembles and choirs. Drawing on early music, especially the Gregorian chant that he had sung as a child, he combined it with the exotic textures and harmonies inherited from Messiaen and Poulenc.
The Hymne à la Vierge is Villette’s best-known work - an a cappella setting that is melodious, homophonic and chromatic, with some delicious harmonies in the four-bar coda showing the influence of the modern harmonies prevalent in the Paris of the 1940s and 1950s.
- Ave Maria (Elberdin)
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Date Posted: Sat, 19 Apr 2025
There are many settings of Ave Maria that have been written over the centuries. The text will be familiar to many across the world, especially those brought up as Catholics, who will know it as the words of "Hail Mary...."
Particularly well known is the setting written by Charles Gounod to sit above a Bach prelude and then became a stand-alone song. Also, Schubert's version is particularly well known. However, for choirs like Reading Phoenix, the unaccompanied setting in F Major by Anton Bruckner, written in 1861, is considered one of the best. A setting that we still sing today.
It was a real pleasure then to discover an excellent new setting "Ave Maria, Gratia Plena" written by the young Spanish composer, Josu Elberdin Badiola (b. 1976) in 2019 and used as a set piece for the 53rd Tolosa Choral Contest in 2022.
The piece has a delicate opening section that gradually builds to broad, dense melodies underpinned with strong supportive harmonies with a calm Amen section at the end. It is a piece that the choir enjoys and we published a recording of it in 2024.
