CLASSICAL music written in response to the horrors of the First World War will be played at a concert this weekend.

Bolton Festival Choir and Orchestra will perform in We Will Remember Them at Bolton Parish Church, Churchgate, on Sunday evening.

Music will include Edward Elgar's The Spirit of England, written after the composer received a request to write a requiem for those slain in battle.

The concert will also feature Michael Tippett’s spirituals from A Child in Our Time, a work inspired by reports from Germany which had a profound affect on the composer, including the Nazi persecution of Jews.

Franz Joseph Haydn’s Insanae et vanae curae will also be performed and the wind section from the orchestra will play the Strauss Serenade in E flat for 13 wind instruments.

Laurette Evans, who has been a member of Bolton Festival Choir for 12 years, said: “The rehearsals are going very well.

“We only have three weeks of rehearsals. It’s very different from the ordinary choral societies where they would normally rehearse for three months.

“We do two rehearsals a week for three weeks, it’s very intense.

“Choral societies tend not to meet during the summer so it gives people a chance to do some extra singing.

“They come from all over the place, it’s amazing.”

About 80 people will perform in the concert, many with family connections to the war and Laurette says it will be impossible not to feel emotion while performing.

She said: “My grandfather fought in the First World War.

“He was gassed, he had really bad respiratory problems after that.

“My grandmother’s brothers, she came from a big family and there was only one brother that survived the war.”

Bolton Festival Choir and Orchestra will perform We Will Remember Them at Bolton Parish Church, Churchgate, at 7.30pm on Sunday.

Phone 01204 669115 for tickets.