A rare performance of an extraordinary Cantata: Dona Nobis Pacem will take place on 16 November in Edinburgh. Composed by Ronald Center (1913-1973), this performance will be given by the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union.
This Cantata is an impassioned plea for peace in a world gone mad. Compared with Vaughan Williams, who set a similar compilation of texts, Center clearly views matters less optimistically, but equally feels that his view is of great significance; thus his work has been found to make a profound impact on audiences.
The cantata’s spiritual pessimism leads from apprehension, fear, compassion, sarcasm, irony, and panic, to the desolate nuclear landscape of the pitying Agnus Dei which concludes the work.
Ronald Center received sporadic professional performances especially early in his career, but later his efforts were met with indifference. His style – tonal, yet sometimes austere and uncompromising, was unlikely to appeal to the arbiters of taste in this period. Today, some of the piano works and this Cantata have been recorded. Several of the piano, songs, and choral music have now also been published in accessible editions.
Around 1977, the composer’s wife, Evelyn approached the Aberdeen University ‘Havergal Brian and British Music Society’ for assistance to realise the composer’s vision for this Cantata. Derek Blyth, Gordon Tocher, and Ian Maxwell subsequently made an instrumental version of the score, in keeping – so far as could be ascertained – with the composer’s intentions. This edition was first performed on March 10, 1978, in King’s College Chapel, University of Aberdeen.
The Cantata will be performed alongside Brahms Requiem and Stanford’s For lo I raise up.
For more information and to book tickets, visit the Edinburgh Royal Choral Union website.