WHAT better way to celebrate midsummer than enjoying an evening of some of the finest choral music from two of the foremost German Romantic composers, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn?

This is the question being asked by members of the Malvern Festival Chorus, who are preparing for a concert at Malvern Theatres featuring Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem and Tragische Ouverture, together with Mendelssohn’s Hear my Prayer which includes the perennial favourite, O for the Wings of a Dove.

A spokesman said: “Performing under the baton of their newly appointed Musical Director, Jonathan Brown, Director of Music at Malvern College, the choir will once again be joined by the 1885 Singers from London with their conductor, Alison Hunka, a long-standing resident of Malvern. The performance will also feature soloists Louise Wayman, soprano, and Edward Robinson, baritone, as well as the accomplished musicians of Cheltenham Regency Sinfonia.

“Unlike many other composers, Brahms saw his Requiem as one to comfort the living, not one for the souls of the dead. Another departure from tradition was to base the text on the Lutheran Bible rather than the conventional Latin one. The result is a powerful combination of sublimely lyrical music with interludes of dramatic intensity.”

The spokesman added: “Complementing the works by Brahms, Mendelssohn’s Hear my Prayer was written some 20 years earlier and had its first performance in London in 1845. Modestly called “a trifle” by the composer, it is one of his best-known and most popular choral works. It has become particularly familiar from the recording made in 1927 featuring boy soprano, Ernest Lough.

“Malvern Festival Chorus look forward to rounding off their 2017-18 season with a programme of hauntingly beautiful and uplifting music.

The date for the diary is June 23.

Tickets at: http://www.malvern-theatres.co.uk/?s=malvern+festival+chorus