Favourite Christmas Music

[Nick Armstrong]

If you are looking for a new choral CD to give (or receive) as a prezzie, there's this from Gonville & Caius:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/dormi-jesu-a-caius-christmas-mw0002736726

Lovely!

"Hills of the North, Rejoice!" is such a great tune!

I wish they'd taken the opportunity to add the Sandström version of "Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen" to the original Praetorius...

[Padraig]

Once as I Remember.

The Monteverdi Choir's performance of the music from the JEG family Nativity play.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/remember-Eliot-Gardiner-Conductor-Monteverdi/dp/B00FR18QOY/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1417805765&sr=1-1&keywords=once+as+i+remember

[ardcarp]

I wonder if Amazon isn't missing a trick by not displaying tracks you can listen to? Some CD suppliers do this, e.g. the one under #36.

[Padraig]

I wonder if Amazon isn't missing a trick by not displaying tracks you can listen to?

They do for some ardcarp. But I can't find anything for this one on youtube either.
I think it's very good. It has a helpful booklet, which I enjoyed reading and 30 stunning numbers from every period and many places which can be heard as a piece, or simply as a compilation of favourites. They can certainly stand alone.

[ardcarp]

Just been listening to a fave CD whilst doing Christmas cards. It's called Incarnation and it's by the Gabrielis plus trebles from The Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir. It really has superb singing (all the usual suspects in the choir) and it includes Adam Lay y Boudedn by Matthew Martin, Leighton's A Hymn to the Nativity [do listen to this all ye Leighton haters...you'll be converted] and Britten's A boy was Born. Some beautifully simple anon 13th/14th century stuff too.

http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=1014537

[MickyD]

These little 'noels' by Daquin are much to my taste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yq_3Plt-xU

[ardcarp]

Thanks MickyD, just played them. The first is quite well-known, I think. Good to hear more.

[Padraig]

Thanks MickyD, just played them. The first is quite well-known, I think. Good to hear more.

Played some of them too. Saved the link for a further listen.
I am enjoying Poulenc's Four Motets for Christmas. Harmony unexpectedly familiar?

[Philip]

I love the Poulenc motets, particularly 'Quem vidistis' which seems to be the least performed of the four.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Christmas-Westminster-Quinney-ODonnell-Hyperion/dp/B001F4YGZU

This recording from Wabbey is probably worth buying just for the Poulenc, but there's lots of other good reasons including the Rutter, Chilcott and Dove.

I'm also enjoying Tewkesbury's latest CD offering from the Schola Cantorum which has a good range of pieces including some recent commissions, of which Chilcott's 'The night he was born' is lovely and Thomas Hewitt-Jones's 'Verbum caro factus est' sounds like something out of panto but is rather enjoyable for it!

While on organ music, I've just been for the annual dose of Messiaen at Southwell Minster played by Simon Hogan. Not everyone's cup of tea, perhaps, but hearing the whole thing with programme notes, reflections and pieces of art to accompany it really makes a difference. Last year was the first time I heard 'La Nativite' all the way through and it blew me away and was probably the musical highlight of my Christmas.

[Vox Humana]

Thomas Hewitt-Jones's 'Verbum caro factus est' sounds like something out of panto but is rather enjoyable for it!

I don't know this piece, but from other pieces of his that I have heard I can't help feeling that he deserves more exposure than he gets. A still under-rated composer?

ILast year was the first time I heard 'La Nativite' all the way through and it blew me away and was probably the musical highlight of my Christmas.

I should think so too. Wonderful stuff! I love the ultra-impressionism of Messiaen's early style; I begin to part company at the Messe de la Pentcôte. I actually learnt the whole of La Nativité when I was 18 and, although I kept it up to scratch for many years, it's one of my greatest regrets that I never played the whole thing in public - I never felt I had an audience that would appreciate it. And as for the Philistia in which I now reside... Ah well, such is life.

[mercia]

I can't find La Nativite anywhere in the Radio 3 Christmas schedule unless it's hidden in Through The Night somewhere. I would make it a permanent annual fixture.

[DublinJimbo]

Last year was the first time I heard 'La Nativite' all the way through and it blew me away and was probably the musical highlight of my Christmas.

La Nativité was among my introduction to Messiaen. It was part of an evening programme on the then Third Programme (it would have been in the early '60s). Either an hour and a half or two hours devoted entirely to Messiaen's organ music, with wonderfully informative and extensive introductions by the (unnamed, of course) announcer. I'd never heard anything like it before, and wasn't an organ aficionado by any means, but the programme made an enormous impression and encouraged me to investigate Messiaen's music in general. If only present-day listeners to Radio 3 had the benefit of experiences such as that, all would be right with the world (well, with the exception of the situation in Syria and the CIA's shenanigans and the get-out-of-jail-free cards granted to the bankers …).

[ardcarp]

I don't know this piece, but from other pieces of his that I have heard I can't help feeling that he deserves more exposure than he gets. A still under-rated composer?

I don't either, but I wonder if you are thinking of Tony Hewitt Jones Snr. whom I knew well, but who sadly died quite a while ago. His 'At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners' used to appear quite frequently on Anglican music lists.

[gurnemanz]

Steeleye's Maddy Prior with the Carnival Band always get a spin in this house on Christmas Day - a more earthy alternative to the big cathedral sound.

[Vox Humana]

I don't either, but I wonder if you are thinking of Tony Hewitt Jones Snr. whom I knew well, but who sadly died quite a while ago. His 'At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners' used to appear quite frequently on Anglican music lists.

No, I was indeed thinking of Thomas - although I'm sure it's equally true of Tony. I have a copy of "At the round Earth's" in my box files, but have never actually heard it,more's the pity.