As part of our occasional series exploring the music of eighteenth-century English composers, this concert celebrates the music of William Boyce (1711–1779). Boyce was consistently the finest and most wide-ranging English contemporary of Handel, writing in most of the forms of the day, including church music, theatre music, oratorios, court odes (he was Master of the King’s Music from 1757), songs and instrumental music.

The main item in this programme is his youthful masterpiece, the powerful short oratorio David’s Lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, written for a London music club in 1736 but revised for Dublin in 1744. The programme also includes the fine orchestral anthem ‘O be joyful in God’, written for a festival of Boyce’s music in Cambridge in 1749, and the Worcester Overture (Symphony no. 8, published in 1760), written for the Three Choirs Festival and one of his few independent orchestral works.

There will also be a selection of his finest songs, including the beautiful ‘Softly rise, O southern breeze’ from Solomon (1742).