The first half of the concert is a contribution to the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, exploring music written for his plays in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It includes music for The Tempest by Thomas Arne and Thomas Linley, including Linley’s great storm chorus, and Henry Bishop’s once famous song ‘Lo! Here the gentle lark’, written for A Comedy of Errors in 1819.  Mendelssohn’s beautifully orchestrated Wedding March, written in 1843 for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, provides a rousing conclusion.

Mozart left his Requiem unfinished when he died on 5 December, 1791 and soon after his widow asked Franz Xaver Süssmayr to complete it.  This version is the one normally heard today, though Richard Maunder has tried to produce something closer to Mozart’s late style, rejecting Süssmayr’s inadequate additions and orchestrating it using Die Zauberflöte and La Clemenza di Tito as models.  The result is a fascinating new insight into a familiar masterpiece.