Music for a Summer's Evening with a Murder

A concert of String music in the magnificent surrounding of the Great Hall Vale Royal Abbey. The sharp and ominous music from Alfred Hitchcock’s classic film, Psycho, features in Vale Royal String Orchestra’s concert.

Released in 1960, Psycho was shot in black and white. Who can forget one of the famous scenes in cinematic history, when Janet Leigh meets her end in the shower scene, to the haunting strains of Bernard Herrman’s film score?

The orchestra has invited award winning Welsh harpist, Bethan Conway to join them for this concert. 

Debussy’s Danse sacré et Danse profane were first performed in Paris in 1904 and the two dances are impressionistic in style, characteristic of the composer and the period. 

The Five Variants of Dives & Lazarus were written in 1939 based on an English folk tune that Vaughan-Williams first heard in 1893; he felt he had known the tune all his life. 

Another work for string orchestra and harp, Sospiri (Opus 70) by Edward Elgar, dates from just before the start of WW1. Elgar set out to compose a “sigh of love” but it became sighs of foreboding over the coming war and the arms race in Europe. 

The Death of Aase and Anitra’s Dance are two contrasting pieces from Edvard Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite, written as incidental music to Ibsen’s play which chronicles the downfall and then redemption of the peasant anti-hero, the charming but reckless Peer Gynt. 

Contrary to popular belief, the tune Greensleeves was not composed by Henry VIII but by Richard Jones. In this performance, we’ll hear the arrangement for harp and strings by Ralph Vaughan-Williams.

Our conductor is Richard Adamson who studied music at Cambridge and Conducting from the Royal Northern College of Music 

£18.00 (students, children £8.00) at the door, contactless or cash. 

Profits are for the continuing mission of St Mary’s Church, Whitegate.