The Brontë Suite at Cadogan Hall

A concert tomorrow, June 22, at Cadogan Hall in London contains the UK premiere of a Brontë-inspired piece by Libby Croad: The Brontë Suite for choir and string quartet.

The Lark Ascending and Duruflé Requiem
With the City of London Sinfonia & Brighton Festival Chorus
Sunday 22 June 2025, 4pm

Programme

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Greensleeves

Libby Croad The Brontë Suite (UK premiere)

Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending

Duruflé Requiem

Performers

City of London Sinfonia

Brighton Festival Chorus

Alexandra Wood violin

James Morgan conductor

Join the City of London Sinfonia and Brighton Festival Chorus, with conductor James Morgan, for a contemplative summer programme.

Vaughan Williams’ beautiful Fantasia on Greensleeves is followed by the UK premiere of Libby Croad’s The Brontë Suite – a stunning setting for choir and strings of poetry by each of the three Brontë sisters.

We welcome Alexandra Wood to play Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending. Written in the summer of 1914 on the eve of war, it has a poignancy, beauty, and a sense of nostalgia that captures the very essence of reflectiveness and Englishness.

After the interval, Duruflé’s greatest composition, his Requiem – one of the undisputed masterpieces of the 20th-century choral repertoire, described as “a work of sumptuous craft, beautiful unity and real grandeur”.

Duration: approx. 2 hours (incl. interval)

Planet Hugill interviewed the composer about this new piece:

Libby wrote The Brontë Suite in January 2024, she was on sabbatical and as she loved the Brontë sisters' poems the idea of a piece based on them had been in the back of her head and the time seemed right. She effectively had free reign as there was no commission and she wrote it for choir and string quartet, figuring that was a nicely economic line-up. 

The piece uses three poems, Emily's Spellbound, Anne's A Reminiscence and Charlotte's Life. The three poems are not technically meant to be together but Libby feels that their themes of life, love and loss work well.