London Philharmonic Choir

  • Home
  • About us
    • About the Choir
    • Podcasts
    • Book
    • History
    • Concerts
    • Recordings & broadcasts
    • Ring the Bells
      • General information
      • FAQs for choirs
      • List of performances
    • Our Royal Patronage and other partnerships
  • Concerts
    • 2025/2026 season
    • 2024/2025 season
    • 2023/2024 season
    • 2022/2023 season
    • 2021/2022 season
    • 2020/2021 season
    • 2010/2011 – 2019/2020
      • 2019/2020 season
      • 2018/2019 season
      • 2017/2018 season
      • 2016/2017 season
      • 2015/2016 season
      • 2014/2015 season
      • 2013/2014 season
      • 2012/2013 season
      • 2011/2012 season
      • 2010/2011 season
    • 2001/2002 – 2009/2010
      • 2009/2010 season
      • 2008/2009 season
      • 2007/2008 season
      • 2006/2007 season
      • 2005/2006 season
      • 2004/2005 season
      • 2003/2004 season
      • 2002/2003 season
      • 2001/2002 season
  • Join us
  • Engage us
  • Members’ area
  • Contact us

Love is a Many Splendored Thing – Choral Music and Love

February 14, 2017 by LPC By our Singers
4
choir love

Soprano Jenni Kilvert is about to get married – so of course she is the perfect person to tell us about Choral Music and Love…

Love is a many splendored thing
Love lifts us up where we belong
All you need is love”

When I was asked to write this piece on music and love, these were the first words that came into my head. The opening lines from the Elephant Love Medley from the film Moulin Rouge (because what sums up love better than Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor leaping around a massive metal elephant positioned in the middle of the Moulin Rouge singing?). And then I panicked.

I had been asked to write this post because my fiancé and I are recently engaged and getting married later this year. Who better then to write about music and love? This is where I have to let you into a little secret – we don’t even have “a song”. In fact, we had already decided that we were so rubbish in this department that we had asked my sister to sort all the music for during the signing of register and have just left her to get on with it.

So I panicked some more about writing this post, did some more thinking, did some Googling and then asked my friends. One person could come back to me with a couple of songs. This did include Greater Love by John Ireland which is gorgeous, and if you’ve not heard it, do go and listen to it.

Generally choral music and love don’t seem to go hand in hand, not in the conventional way. I’m not aware of people putting on Valentine’s choral concerts, and the few pieces that I could find are all by modern composers, which I guess is quite surprising when you consider how much love was written about in plays, but then maybe it was left to opera. There are many love songs in opera, but I have to say I struggle with them. They are mostly big and a bit scary and don’t remind me of or evoke love at all, but maybe someone can point me in the direction of one that would change my mind.

But I have pieces of music that I love and am in love with. They are pieces that speak to me, send goose bumps down my spine – transporting me back to a place and a memory. I had been looking at it all wrong. Love in music is of course more complicated than belting out the Whitney, Mariah and Take That of my teenage years (THAT saxophone in A Million Love Songs though….).

I will always love Mozart’s Requiem. When I was in my third year at university the orchestra and choir went on a tour of Ireland and this is the piece that we played in many concerts over the week. It’s not a romantic piece, it doesn’t speak of love, but it fills me with memories of a week of friendship and fun that I will always love and cherish. It will always be tied to that week and those people, and I know this is true for a lot of other people on the tour too.

The last phrase sung in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis is a single phrase that I love. I enjoy singing the whole piece, don’t get me wrong, but there is something about the right combination, of the right notes, at the right time that just makes something in my stomach go. The very first time I heard it in a tutti rehearsal with the orchestra it took my breath away. I cannot explain why, but at that moment everything seems perfect, safe and right.

I have more examples of pieces and phrases of music that stir memories, or give me butterflies, but I’m hoping by now that you are thinking of the pieces that do that for you and the reasons why.

I’m a firm believer that music doesn’t have to be about love to evoke those feelings. Sometimes those pieces that are meant to speak to us of love, do the exact opposite. What pieces of choral (or non-choral) music leaps to your mind that applies to either of those? I’m always willing to have my knowledge of music extended so would love to hear your views. Please feel let us know on our Facebook Page.

Oh, and in case you’re worried about my fiancé and my musical future, we do have one song that we would probably call ours – The Muppets ‘Mahna Mahna’. Feel free to ask me why if you ever meet me.

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google+
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
  • Tumblr
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
The Creation by Haydn. Just Splendid.
Torment and Tranquillity: The Many Facets of Mozart’s Requiem

Related Posts

  • pastedGraphic-7
    Music, mental health and Handel’s Messiah
    So much science has shown how positively music, and in particular singing, improves our mental
    May 1, 2025
  • Screenshot 2025-03-21 at 18.03.03
    Symphony of a thousand – the Choir sings Mahler’s Eighth Symphony
    Three choirs, eight starry singers and one of the largest orchestras ever put on stage:
    March 31, 2025
Recent Posts
  • Music, mental health and Handel’s Messiah
  • London Philharmonic Choir appoints Chorus Director, Madeleine Venner
  • Symphony of a thousand – the Choir sings Mahler’s Eighth Symphony
  • It’s movie night!
  • Love is in the air
Archives
  • May 2025
  • April 2025
  • March 2025
  • February 2025
  • January 2025
  • November 2024
  • October 2024
  • September 2024
  • August 2024
  • July 2024
  • May 2024
  • April 2024
  • February 2024
  • November 2023
  • October 2023
  • August 2023
  • June 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • August 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • June 2020
  • April 2020
  • October 2019
  • May 2019
  • February 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • May 2018
  • March 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • July 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
Categories
  • At the BBC Proms with our singers
  • By our Singers
  • From the Maestro
  • LPC Music Professionals
  • News
  • Notes from our Chairman
  • Our concerts
Patron – HRH Princess Alexandra
President – Sir Mark Elder CBE
Artistic Director – Neville Creed
Associate Chorus Director – Victoria Longdon
London Philharmonic Choir © 2025. Privacy Policy