Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Belshazzar’s Feast has advised the event has been rescheduled.

Current Date
Sun 28 June, 2020 – Concourse Concert Hall

Rescheduled Date
Sun 9 May, 2021 – Concourse Concert Hall

Belshazzar’s Feast tells the dramatic story of the Israelites’ Babylonian captivity and enslavement, the wealth of the city-state and of King Belshazzar’s great feast at which the King drinks from sacred vessels, stolen from Jerusalem’s First Temple.  This sacrilege heralds a clap of thunder and God’s hand, writing in Hebrew:  “You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting.”  Belshazzar is killed, the Israelites are freed and the city is destroyed.

The music is equally dramatic with wild extremes.  The work involves a variety of moods from the delicate to the cataclysmic, a full orchestra with massed brass, a battery of percussion, some jazz rhythms, a baritone soloist and large choir.

Chichester Psalms  Each of the three choral movements centres around one complete psalm with excerpts from another.  The work is jazzy and contemporary, Bernstein describing it as “popular in feeling” with “an old-fashioned sweetness along with its more violent moments”.  Hebrew text combines with Christian choral tradition in a plea for reconciliation and unity.