Monmouth Choral Society’s summer concert, featuring songs by four leading 20-century composers, will be held at 7.30pm on Saturday (June 7) at St Mary’s Priory Church, Monmouth. The conductor will be Steven Kings, the choir’s director of music, with Rob Pritchard, baritone, and Sam Bayliss, piano.

The programme will include Songs of the Fleet by Stanford, Five Mystical Songs by Vaughan Williams, Choral Dances from Gloriana by Britten and Old American Songs by Copland. The three English composers are directly linked: Ralph Vaughan Williams studied under Charles Villiers Stanford and in turn Benjamin Britten was a pupil of Vaughan Williams. Steven Kings and Sam Bayliss will also perform Peter Warlock’s Capriol Suite for piano duet.

Stanford’s Songs of the Fleet, for baritone solo and chorus, date from 1910, and followed his earlier Songs of the Sea, although they are more reflective than the earlier work. For both works Stanford collaborated with the poet Henry Newbolt. The five songs range from evoking a vast armada setting sail at dawn to a depiction of the terrifying power of a hurricane, and ends with Fare Well, a memorial to all who have died at sea. This setting was to become immensely popular during World War One.

Vaughan Williams’ Five Mystical Songs were also written for baritone solo and chorus, with words by the 17th century Anglican priest and poet George Herbert. This work was composed around the same time as Vaughan Williams Sea Symphony and was premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in Worcester in 1911.

Britten’s Choral Dances are taken from his opera Gloriana, written to mark the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, and set in the regal world of the first Queen Elizabeth. The opera was not well-received and has rarely been performed since. However Britten revived the six dances when asked to produce music for the opening of the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London’s South Bank in 1967. The pieces form a masque, performed by local people for the entertainment of Good Queen Bess during a visit to Norwich.

Aaron Copland, who died in 1990 aged 90, was an American composer, critic, writer, teacher, pianist and conductor. His leftist leanings led to controversy and he was criticised by some for what they saw as his populist music writing. However those same pieces remain among the most admired and performed classical works. The Old American Songs, Set Two, were written in 1952 and followed his acclaimed first set. The songs include brilliant settings of a Southern lullaby, a revivalist song, an Anglo-American ballad from the War of Independence and an arrangement of the hymn tune At the River.

Peter Warlock is the pseudonym of the English composer and music critic Philip Arnold Heseltine. His Capriol Suite is a set of dances composed in 1926, which will be preformed in the original piano duet version. Warlock later scored it for both string and full orchestra. It is based on tunes from Renaissance dances.

Tickets for the concert are £15, under-18s free, and are available at monmouthchoralsociety.co.uk or from the choir box office on 01594 531496 or on the door.