News of Great Joy: Christmas from St John's College, Oxford

Looking towards the sixtieth anniversary (2025) of Elizabeth Poston's Penguin Book of Carols (1965), initially undertaken with Ralph Vaughan Williams, this new recording presents music associated with these two composers (including Poston's arrangement of Peter Warlock's I saw a fair maiden).

Here's the stated intent of the disc:

In this recording we survey work associated with these two composers and the works they edited, alongside newer pieces exemplifying the principles Poston set out. Her Jesus Christ the Apple Tree has been a firm favourite within the College for many years, and in this recording, we explore some of her musical ideas.

Peter Warlock's gently rocking What Cheer? Good Cheer! (1928) is the opening gambit, presented with piano accompaniment. It cedes to a carol, by Imogen Holst, a composer we recently featured here on Classical Explorer here. her setting of Nowell and Nowell ("born is the King of Israel") is simply lovely and should be better known. Here it is:

The famous A Sussex Carol (Vaughan Williams) gets a gentle, rhythmically alive performance:

A lesser-known John Rutter carol, All the Stars Looked Down, written in memory of Stephen Cleobury, is imbued with characteristic Rutter warmth before Holst's famous, glorious In the Bleak Midwinter receives a lovely, interior, performance, fully heartfelt, from the Oxford choir:

It is lovely to have some Richard Rodney Bennett here his Pure Nobis (Song of the Nuns of Chester), the harmonies almost mystical:

... linking to the single-line statement of the Anonymous Song of the Nuns of Chester, heard a little later in the programme.

There are two settings of Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen, the first a Canon by Melchior Colpius (c. 1570-1615), and the second the ,ore familiar Praetorius. But it is the canon that is most fascinating, heard in an arrangement by the choir's director, David Bannister:

It was perhaps inevitable that there is some Britten here, and we have the haunting "Copus Christi Carol" from A Boy is Born, the use of harp (Aoife Miralies) sounding absolutely characteristic of this composer, as are the melodic profiles. It is absolutely transfixing, and the Oxford singers sing perfectly as one:

I like the comparative complexty of Elizabeth Maconchy's There is no Rose. We have met Maconchy before, in songs coupled with some by Vaughan Williams, again on Resonus Classics, her Siren's Song on The Sixteen's disc of that name, and, in concert at Cadogan Hall, her Music for Strings. Here is her complex, wonderful setting of There is no Rose, the "alleluia"s radiant and celebratory through the magic of her dissonant, but not difficult, language:

Fans of a traditional Christmas will relish Poston's own Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, its phrases shaped beautifully here, its expressive harmonies fully honoured; it leads naturally to the comparative harmonic richness of Poston's stirring of Michael Praetorius' Es ist ein Ros' entsprungn referred to earlier. The transparency of lines in the latter is most impressive, and the entry of the organ (Christian Wilson) is perfectly judged:

As.a gateway to more Imogen Holst, the “Gloria” from that composer's Mass in A-Minor is perfect, offering just the one movement. The performance is impeccable, honing both old (the plainchant moments) and new (Holst's harmonies). It makes one ache to hear the whole thing:

Talking of which, you can indeed hear the whole piece performd by Clare College, Cambridge, here.

A rather nice instrumental introduction to David Bednall's Ave Maria for violin and organ (it works - true me!) is simply lovely: Vivian Lui is the sweetest-toned violinist, who also provides a sinewy counterpoint to the choir's statements of Ave Maria:

Finally, Bob Chilcott's much-loved The Shepherd's Carol, upper voices perfectly together, harmonies as mysterious as the act of incarnation itself.

The booklet is freely available at this link, and it is a veritable mine of information. The recording (product and engineered by Adam Binks) is state of the art.

This lovely, heart-warming disc is available from Amazon here; the Imogen Holst choral disc is available here.