The ancient canticle ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord’ spoken by Mary has been set to music countless times over the centuries. Bach’s thrilling setting, first performed in the church of St Thomas, Leipzig in 1733, and scored for five-part choir, five soloists, strings, oboes, flutes, three trumpets and timpani is one of his greatest and most popular compositions.

First performed in Vienna in 1796, Haydn’s Missa in Tempore Belli (Mass in Time of War) is nicknamed the Paukenmesse due to the dramatic use of timpani (pauken), said to foreshadow Beethoven’s mighty Missa Solemnis. It is one of a group of the composer’s late masterpieces including the Creation and the Nelson Mass. He probably had Napoleon’s possible invasion of Austria in mind. At times unsettling, but also lyrically joyful and ending with trumpet fanfares and a fabulous celebration of peace, it is Haydn at his most exciting.

With the choir accompanied by Instruments of Time and Truth, described on BBC Record Review as ‘an absolutely superb band of instrumental soloists’, this concert will be unmissable!