The Sacred Cry

This spring, Kingfisher Chorale invites you to a richly woven evening of choral music, featuring two radiant works from Central Europe: Leoš Janáček’s Mass in E-flat and Zoltán Kodály’s Missa Brevis. Though composed only a decade apart, these pieces offer two distinct windows into a musical world where sacred tradition meets the colours and rhythms of everyday life.

Both Janáček and Kodály were profoundly shaped by the sounds around them – the speech patterns, folk songs, and modal nuances of Moravia and Hungary. You can hear that influence everywhere in their music: the earthy vitality, the surprising turns of harmony, and the sense of something ancient stirring beneath the surface. Yet each composer speaks in an unmistakably personal voice.

Janáček brings raw-edged intensity, bold contrasts, and a thrilling emotional immediacy. Kodály offers warmth, elegance, and luminous craftsmanship that seems to glow from within. The missa brevis form – concise, focused, and deeply expressive – allows both composers to distil the Mass text into moments of clarity, devotion, and shimmering beauty.

Placed side by side, these two works transport us into a shared cultural landscape while revealing the individuality of the artists who created them. The result is a programme that feels at once reflective and exhilarating: music that invites stillness in one moment and lifts the spirit skyward in the next.

Whether you are encountering these pieces for the first time or returning to old favourites, we think you will be moved by their energy, poignancy, and sheer musical imagination.

Join Kingfisher Chorale for an unforgettable spring evening – and let this remarkable pairing speak directly to the heart. Performances start at 7.30pm March 21st, Clarendon Park Congregational Church, Leicester, LE2 3BB

March 28th, St Mary's Church, Melton Mowbray, LE13 1AE

Tickets available now. BOOK HERE