FROM music composed in the early fifteenth century, to a piece that received its first performance in May the Durham Singers’ summer concert spans 600 years of love songs.

The choir will be appearing at St Brandon’s Church, Brancepeth, near Durham City, at 7pm on Saturday July 11, to present a programme entitled The Garden of Love: 600 years of lovesongs.

The sensual love poetry from the Old Testament Song of Songs was often used by Renaissance composers to praise the Virgin Mary, but the music and words often suggest more earthly pleasures.

The Durham Singers will sing settings of Descendi in Hortum Meum by John Dunstable and Cipriano de Rore that compare the delights of love to the flowers and fruits of the garden, while the text set by Tomás Luis Victoria in Quam pulchri sunt praises every part of the beloved’s body, from feet to hair.

The Song of Songs has continued to inspire composers, and the verses about the enduring power of love were used by William Walton in his anthem Set me as a seal and by the young composer Charlotte Bray, whose piece Come Away was first performed in May 2015 in Chester Cathedral.

Durham Singer’s musical director Dr Julian Wright described Charlotte Bray as “one of the outstanding composers of her generation”.

He said: “Her music has “a strong individual voice based on real compositional technique, virtuosic mastery of orchestral colour, but also natural lyricism.

“The three movements of Come Away unfold beautifully and show that, within the tight discipline of four-part choral writing, there is ample opportunity for new, distinctive and authoritative choral writing in the 21st century.”

The Durham Singers will also perform some delightful secular part songs on the theme of love.

This year sees the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.

The choir are fortunate to have two native Finns in their ranks - Päivi-Sisko Eerola and Kaisa Nuolioja will sing the solo parts of the two lovers in Sibelius’s choral suite, Rakastava.

The words are from Finnish folk poetry and describe how two lovers are searching for each other in the beautiful forests and meadows of Finland. Closer to home, works by Vaughan Williams, Holst, Armstrong Gibbs and Murrill’s setting of Shakespeare’s O Mistress Mine, round off the programme.

To thank their friends for their support over the past year, the Durham Singers invite everyone to join them for wine and summer refreshments after the concert.

Tickets £12 (students and under 25 £6, children under 13 free). Available from www.durham-singers.org the box office on Ticketsource 0333 666 3366 or contact the choir on 0779 0148062 to reserve tickets on the door.