Mourning

Will there be a Mail/Express/Brexit hoo-ha over the Proms ?

The UK premiere of James MacMillan's European Requiem, simply for the title, could be a firestarter. First performed in the far-away safety of Eugene, Oregon, the composer wrote, obliquely, in 2016: "The language I feel drawn back to is Latin, which represents for me the common European language that existed before nationalist barriers were erected."

"It was the lingua franca used by the European founding fathers, whether in Roman times or in the Church, and provided a source of common identity for a millennium and a half, in international relations, education and the sharing of ideas. Setting texts in Latin may now seem counter-cultural to many, but for me it represents the ideal rediscovering of our common heritage."

(It) "is not a memorial for a loved one but rather a general response to this vivid text, coloured by a realism and wistfulness at the passing of deep cultural resonances."