James McVinnie: Bach and New Patterns

Written in 1969, Philip Glass’ rarely heard Music in Fifths offers a musical canvas in which the same five notes are repeated in constantly shifting patterns, producing a mesmerising and beguiling effect on the listener – musical mathematics of a very different kind.

Written in 2014 for the great organist John Scott shortly before he died, Patterns by Nico Muhly is a rhythmic world all of its own: 'full of filigree figuration and no little rhythmic complexity', according to Choir & Organ.

McVinnie completes the concert with the balm of one of Bach’s most heartfelt and intimate settings of the choral ‘When in the hour of utmost need’.