Peter Dijkstra

Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir is one of the most beautiful choral works ever written. With these performances, the Netherlands Chamber Choir commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the death of this influential Swiss composer, who lived in Naarden for a long time. As a tribute, the Netherlands Chamber Choir will also perform Martin’s enchanting Songs of Ariel, which he composed for the Netherlands Chamber Choir in 1951. Martin’s brilliant sounds are complemented by Francis Poulenc’s profound Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence. Pouling was another 20th-century composer with whom the choir enjoyed a close relationship. In 1952, Poulenc dedicated the four Christmas motets O Magnum Mysterium to Felix de Nobel, founder of the Netherlands Chamber Choir, who at that time was also its chief conductor.