Brattleboro Camerata – Seeing Double: Music for Two Choirs

The Brattleboro Camerata presents “Seeing Double: Music for Two Choirs” Sunday, December 15, at 4 p.m. at the BMC.

Directed by Jonathan Harvey, the chamber choir will perform Great Service by William Byrd
and Mass in G minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

“Our program is all about dialogue, on multiple levels,” explains Harvey. “First, physically, as both works are composed for double choir, meaning that there are two distinct vocal ensembles on stage singing back and forth to each other. Hence the ‘Seeing Double’ program title.”

A more metaphorical dialogue is the conversation between the two composers, as Byrd ‘speaks’ from the late 16th century and Vaughan Williams ‘responds’ from the early 20th century.

Harvey points out Byrd was the most powerful and influential British musician of his time, his influence echoing through centuries, and Vaughan Williams consciously wrote the Mass in G minor as an homage to the music of Byrd and his Renaissance-era colleagues.