Le Grand Mystère: French and English Noëls

Recorded on the Aix-en-Provence based label Rocamadour, this is an eclectic disc divided Ito four parts: "Réjooussez-vous"; "Un Enfant nous et né"; :Dans une Nuit silencieuse"'; "Soyez Joyeux".

The label is new to me, but I hope to encounter it again soon: the choir is absolutely top-flight, the recording superb. The choir is headed by its Artistic Director Emmeran Rollin and its Music Director Alix Dumon Debaecker. Nice, too, that they have posted some videos as well as pure sound videos to YouTube.

It is are a choir can sing music from plainchant to Tevener with equal expertise. and yet here it is: the traditional Leta leta concio (taken from a 12th-Century Florentine MS) and the plainchant O Oriens, which together lead into James MacMillan's O Radiant Dawn. Ancient meets the music of our time, MacMillan's cry of the opening line blissful here. There are more forthright performances of the MacMillan, but Ensemble la Sportelle take an approach born of serenity:

And if you thought you knew Coventry Carol, think again! This is Richard Allain's take. The contours and harmonic twists are familiar, but Allain takes the harmonies for a more Modernist walk. The Ensemble la Sportelle's pitching is spot-on, which enables the dissonances to properly "speak":

Steve Sametz's Gaudete is a riff on a 14h-Century carol, mobile and a real demonstration of the choir's clear virtuosity.

It is always interesting to hear non-UK choirs in British music as hey often illuminate, coming from a new direction. such is the case with Britten's A Boy was Born, which kicks off the "birth" section of the disc:

The new sequence is genius: Poulenc's Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noël, interspersed with plainchant and Pierre Villette's O Magnum mysterium (to complement Poulenc's). Now Ensemble la Sportelle really are on home turf, and how it shows. Listen to their Poulenc “O Magnum Mysterium”:

The inclusion of plainchant prior to the Poulenc motets works like this, in the case of “Videntes stellam”:

The plainchant for “Hodie Christus Natus est” is underpinned by drone, prefacing a dancing Poulenc setting. 's radiant and life-affirming.

For the “Silent Night” part of the programme, John Tavener's The Lamb seems the perfect pick, its slowly rotting lines and scrunchy dissonances perfect for reflection:

The Infant King by Josephine Stephenson is harmonically sophisticated, its contours beautifully followed by Ensemble La Sportelle; perhaps Stephenson's harmonic imprinted is less memorable than Britten or Tavener though. Mary's Lullaby by Fredrik Sixten is a take on Silent Night that goes into the corners of the psyche most effectively, though:

It is Britten and Tavener that close the disc, together comprising the "Soyez Joyeux" section. There is an internal radiance to Britten's Hymn to the Virgin, but it is Tavener's A Christmas Round that is truly effective, its additive layers of melody simultaneously ancient and modern:

A most lovely disc, available at Amazon here (streaming/download). Spotify below.