A Feast of Choral Music | Ealing Choral Society

Music from three composers to tempt any palate.

More than just an amuse-bouche for the feast ahead, Debussy’s wonderfully evocative Prélude à “L’Après-midi d’un faune” is a piece whose individuality, intensity and influence enable it to stand along side any other.

Poulenc's Gloria, criticised at the time for being irreverent, is exuberant with freshness and vivacity. It is the work of an older man shrugging off the up-to-date in favour of a style grounded in his early experiences playing the piano in a bar and imbued, with ravishing effect, with insight and maturity.

In contrast to the intimacy and sensuality of Debussy, Walton's Belshazzar's Feast is dramatic, unrestrained and richly orchestrated with rhythms and harmonies reflecting his interest in jazz. It tells of the 'writing on the wall' at the Babylonian king's sacrilegious feast, the fall of his kingdom and the release of the Jews from exile.