String Quartet for choral concert in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire

String Quartet for choral concert in Aylesbury Buckinghamshire – A couple of Saturdays ago the Manor House String Quartet performed with the Aylesbury Festival Choir in a concert of Christmas and festive music. The choir found out about us from concerts we have given at St Nicholas Church in nearby Cuddington. Here is a video of our quartet playing the popular ‘Carol of the Bells’:

The¬†first half of the concert consisted of¬†the ‘Christmas Oratorio’ by Camille Saint-Saens, written for soloists, choir, organ, strings and harp. This was an attractive piece which I’d never heard before and which contained¬†some really magical moments. The¬†programme also included Vaughan Williams’s popular ‘Fantasia on Christmas Carols’ which ended the concert.

At the beginning of the second half,¬†we played four of our string quartet Christmas carols, with a French theme. They were: Charpentiere’s ‘Joseph est Bien Marie’ as well as ‘Il est Ne le Divin Enfant’, ‘Ding Dong! Merrily on High’ and ‘Noel Nouvelet’. All of these carols can be found on our CDs entitled ‘I Saw Three Ships and other carols’ and ‘It Came Upon the Midnight Clear and other carols’.

It was a pleasure to perform for James Davey and the Aylesbury Festival Choir and we’d like to wish them a very Merry Christmas!