THE English Symphony Orchestra (ESO) will continue their hugely popular series of Malvern concerts with a performance in Great Malvern Priory tonight (Wednesday, March 14) at 7.30pm.

The concert will incorporate two of the greatest musical works to emerge from the war-ravaged years which followed the French Revolution - Beethoven’s iconic Eroica Symphony and Haydn’s powerful 'Mass in Time of War', sung by the award-winning Academia Musica Choir. The programme also includes the world premiere of a new tone poem, 'The Valley of Vision', by the ESO’s Composer-in-Association, Philip Sawyers. The concert is conducted by the ESO’s Artistic Director, Kenneth Woods, and is preceded by a pre-concert talk in the Priory at 6:45pm.

The Haydn Mass was composed in 1796 as Austrian armies were reassembling following the failure of a fragile truce with French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte. The music is unusually dramatic for a religious work, with Haydn’s volatile writing for the kettledrums earning the piece the nickname Paukenmesse ('timpani Mass'). Following its premiere it became Haydn’s most popular choral work and critics have long seen it as Haydn’s musical plea for peace in troubled times.

Singing the Haydn with ESO will be the Academia Musica Choir, the scholars’ choir of Hereford Sixth Form College, who have been heard regularly on BBC Radio 3 and whose series of recordings of the music of John Sheppard have been received with universal critical acclaim.

Jon Weller, the choir’s director who is also head of music at HSFC said “It is always a privilege for us to sing with the ESO,” .

“ESO have forged a particularly close partnership with the college over the last few years, bringing world-class musical opportunities to our students. The collaboration between Academia Musica and the ESO allows us to take that partnership beyond one of simply “mentors and students” and to let the members of the chorus sing alongside a leading orchestra as equals.”

Philip Sawyers will oversee his last major premiere before the end of his tenure as The ESO’s 'John McCabe Composer-in-Association', with 'The Valley of Vision.' Sawyers has served as Composer-in-Association of the ESO since 2015, and his period with the orchestra has produced a string of successful works.