Night Watch: Romantic Choral Music from Vienna

While the world sleeps, weary sailors and restless lovers keep vigil through the night.

Led by Grammy-winning conductor Paul Hillier, Ireland's national chamber choir explores the beauty and tranquillity of the nocturnal world in a programme of Romantic choral music from Vienna.

In Brahms' Fünf Gesänge (Op. 104), night watchmen blow their horns in the distance, lamps are extinguished confidently, and a wakeful soul asks the night to carry his love sighing back to him.

In Schubert's Sehnsucht, a lover searches the sky and longs for their distant beloved, and in his Gesang der Geister über den Wassern, the stars admire themselves in a glassy lake.

In Hugo Wolf's six Geistliche Lieder (Holy Songs), a soul rests like a harboured ship while the world sleeps, darkness climbs softly from the hills, and a lone sailor sings across the still night.

At the centre of the programme, Ligeti's iconic Lux Aeterna illuminates the night with eternal light in an avant-garde work made famous by Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Chamber Choir Ireland will also perform this programme in Carlingford on Friday 27 September 2024.

Johannes Brahms (Germany, 1833-1897)—Two Motets, Op. 74

Franz Schubert (Austria, 1797-1828)—Sehnsucht

Hugo Wolf (Austria, 1860-1903)—Geistliche Lieder (I-III)

György Ligeti (Hungary/Austria, 1923-2006)—Lux Aeterna

Hugo Wolf—Geistliche Lieder (IV-VI)

Franz Schubert—Gesang der Geister über den Wassern

Johannes Brahms—Fünf Gesänge, Op. 104

Please note: Doors will open at 6:00pm, and close promptly at 6:30pm for the concert to begin.

Host or Publisher Chamber Choir Ireland