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A Winter’s Light: A Christmas Collection

£11.78

Usually available for despatch within 2-3 working days

Label: Naxos

Cat No: 8573030

Barcode: 0747313303076

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Christmas

Release Date: 29th October 2012

About

The Vasari Singers’ annual carol concerts always provide a warming blend of traditional favourites and less well-known music from all periods and styles. Here, joyous and masterful 16th-century polyphony sits alongside eternally popular Victorian carols, and exquisitely crafted settings by Howells and Walford Davies join works as recent as Gabriel Jackson’s The Christ-child. Bob Chilcott magically superimposes traditional carols with entrancing new material, and no Vasari Christmas would be complete without some close harmony Swingle singing.

The mixture of moving beauty and entertaining good humour in this programme makes it a disc which is sure to appeal to a very wide audience this and every festive season.

Founded in 1980, Vasari Singers is among the leading chamber choirs in Britain, performing music ranging from Renaissance to contemporary. The choir performs regularly in London as well as visiting many of England’s cathedrals to sing services. The choir and Jeremy Backhouse are deeply committed to contemporary music and have commissioned over twenty works since 2000, including works by Francis Pott and Gabriel Jackson.

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Chilcott - This is the truth
2

Rathbone - Gabriel's Message
3

Sweelinck - Hodie Christus natus est
4

Praetorius, arr. Sandstrom: Es ist ein Ros entsprungen
5

Howells: Sing Lullaby
6

Willcocks: Of the Father's heart begotten
7

Walford Davies: O little town of Bethlehem
8

Rathbone: Carol Medley

Europadisc Review

Since their foundation by conductor Jeremy Backhouse in 1980, the London-based Vasari Singers have achieved special renown for their wide-ranging repertoire, from Renaissance polyphony to new commissions, traditional and familiar favourites to more contemporary arrangements. It is a mixture that has proved especially successful in their annual Christmas carol concerts, and it does so again here, aided by the choir's beautifully-poised singing and Backhouse's sensitive direction.

Running like a thread through the first half of the disc are three movements from Bob Chilcott's 2010 cycle On Christmas Night, each seamlessly but thoughtfully combining his own setting of a seasonal text with a traditional carol. One of the most popular of contemporary choral composers, Chilcott is further represented by his simple 1997 setting of Janet Lewis's charming 1981 lullaby Christmas-tide.

At the other end of the chronological spectrum are two settings of the joyful Christmas vespers antiphon Hodie Christus natus est, by Giovanni Gabrieli (1597) and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1619), both buoyantly sung whilst still well-integrated into the recording's overall sound-picture.

The nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — a golden age for carol writing — are well represented, not least by Henry Walford Davies's delightful setting of O little town of Bethlehem (complete with its introductory biblical recitative) and Harold Darke's justly-celebrated version of In the bleak mid-winter. The 'next generation' of carols here includes Herbert Howells's Sing Lullaby and Pierre Villette's exquisitely evocative Hymne à la Vierge, inexplicably neglected in his native France but a firm favourite with English choirs.

More recent festive fare comes in the shape of John Rutter's highly popular Nativity Carol of 1971, which here rubs shoulders with Gabriel Jackson's gently lilting The Christ-child, a 2009 commission for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King's College, Cambridge.

Among the more striking arrangements, two in particular stand out: Jonathan Rathbone's exuberant 1991 adaptation of the ever-popular Gabriel's Message, and Jan Sandström's hauntingly beautiful 1990 arrangement of Michael Praetorius's 16th-century hymn setting Es ist ein Ros entsprungen. Traditionalists will certainly also enjoy Of the Father's heart begotten in David Willcocks's 1963 version, complete with imposing organ accompaniment.

In a rather different vein, two Swingle-style close-harmony arrangements provide a lighter side to the festivities, in the shape of Ben Parry's version of Jingle Bells and Jonathan Rathbone's adaptation of Greg Lake's I believe in Father Christmas, while a similarly light-hearted Carol Medley also by Rathbone makes a perfect conclusion.

Solo contributions are uniformly excellent, Martin Ford's organ accompaniments perfectly judged, and the recording ideally balanced. At bargain price, this latest Vasari disc is sure to delight anyone looking for a musical backdrop to this year's Yuletide celebrations.