Let us transport you back in time to the long-lost Chapel Royal in the Tudor palace of Whitehall during the reigns of Charles II and James II, with the organ and soloists, the string consort and the royal family placed in a gallery and the choir in the choirstalls below. We feature the symphony anthem, King Charles’s favourite type of church music, with its kaleidoscopic contrasts between soloists, strings and the choir. They range from the dramatic ‘When the son of man shall come in his glory’ by Matthew Locke and Pelham Humfrey’s profound ‘By the waters of Babylon’, written in the 1660s, to Henry Purcell’s masterpiece ‘O sing unto the Lord’, written for James II just before he fled the country in 1688. There will also be music by Purcell’s teacher John Blow and the countertenor William Turner, a favourite court singer. To mark Charles III’s coronation we include the original setting of ‘Zadok the priest’ by Henry Lawes and Purcell’s superb ‘I was glad’, composed for Charles II in 1661 and James II in 1685.

Tickets:
£20 (Standard)
£18 (Students)
Free (Young People)