The Durham Singers marked the centenary of the First World War with a contemplative selection of music encompassing the timeless themes of loss, grief and the yearning for peace.

Forming a framework of the programme were two masterpieces by William Byrd, written during the religious strife of Elizabethan England - and given added resonance being performed in St Cuthbert’s Chapel, at the former Catholic seminary of Ushaw College.

Musical director Dr Julian Wright moulded a magnificent account of Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices, opening with a blossoming Kyre Eleison and Gloria brimming with energy.

The singers were in top form, one and all, delivering their lines with crisp diction and expressivity that did full justice to the Byrd’s rich polyphony.

A masterstroke was the way in which cello suites by JS Bach and Britten were woven into gaps in the movements of the Mass.

Cellist Deborah Thorne’s rendition of the first Bach sarabande lingered warmly on each note, while maintaining a gentle sense of momentum.

The singers projected the contrasting passages of the swirling Credo with heartfelt conviction, with Thorne’s soothing second sarabande providing an ideal foil.

Bringing us to a more recent conflict was Francis Pott’s Lament; written in memory of a former head chorister who was killed in action in Afghanistan,

Set to a 1916 poem by Northumberland poet Wilfred Wilson Gibson, the elegiac work packed an emotional punch and resolved with two voices trailing off beautifully into the ether.

It dovetailed perfectly with Thorne’s passionate account of the Lamento and Canto from Britten’s first cello suite.

Richard Rodney Bennett’s A Farewell to Arms for cello and chorus launched the second half of the evening, followed by a transfixing performance by Thorne of an extract from the end of Britten’s third cello suite. The concert ended with a lifting rendition of Byrd’s Ne Irascaris Domine.

Gavin Engelbrecht