The Fourth Choir

With readings from Sir Chris Bryant MP

From the 14th to 19th centuries, thousands of people all over Europe were sentenced to death for being in queer relationships. A Requiem For Those Who Had None commemorates these martyrs of the LGBTQ+ community, and helps to ensure they are not forgotten. The Fourth Choir dedicates this concert to telling their stories.

Among the thousands were James Pratt and John Smith, the last men to be executed in the United Kingdom because of their sexuality. James and John were arrested in Southwark so singing in their memory in the Cathedral is a particularly poignant link.

The programme centres on Victoria's stunning Requiem of 1605, composed at the time of Shakespeare, who lived in the Parish of St Saviour's where the Cathedral now stands and whose brother Edmund died in the area and is commemorated at the Cathedral.

It will also include the moving Lamentations by Dominique Phinot, a Franco-Flemish composer who was himself executed because of his sexuality in 1556 and a series of settings of text from the Song of Songs.