This is not just another recording of Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony
of Carols. The problem, ever since the advent of the LP,
has been selecting a coupling. Britten’s own St Nicholas,
as on the recording by King’s College Cambridge and David Willcocks,
EMI Great Artists 5627962 – also available less expensively
on Classics for Pleasure 9689492, with Rejoice in the Lamb
and other Britten works directed by Philip Ledger – or A
Boy Was Born have obvious seasonal relevance, but neither
work comes anywhere near to the Ceremony of Carols in
terms of quality or popularity. I suspect that both are wonderful
pieces to sing, but less attractive to listeners.
I’m afraid that the same applies to Rejoice in the Lamb,
as recorded with the Ceremony by Trinity College Cambridge
and Richard Marlow on Sony Essential 88697581312, a work which
in any case has no seasonal relevance, though its date of composition
is close to that of the Ceremony.
A highly recommended Hyperion recording couples the Ceremony
with the Missa Brevis and other Britten choral works
(CDA 66220, Westminster Cathedral Choir/James O’Donnell) but
becomes effectively a CD of two halves – one suitable for Christmas
but not for the rest of the year, the other all-year-round music.
A Naxos recording also couples year-round music by Britten with
the Ceremony (8.553183 conducted by Ronald Corp) and
Nicholas Wilkes with the Finchley Children’s Music Group couples
another non-Christmas work, Noyes Fludde (SOMM212), though
that is as recommendable as any of the better-known recordings
of the latter, including Britten’s own: see review.
Even the Coro CD on which Harry Christophers and the Sixteen
sing the Ceremony and other Britten works, contains only
one other seasonal item, an arrangement of the Shepherd’s
Carol (COR16034). Their Christmas collection, Hodie,
which I recommended in last year’s Christmas
Downloads (COR16004 – see also review by Jonathan Woolf
- here)
and again this year as part of a three-CD reissue, entitled
A Christmas Collection (COR16054 – see December 2010
Download
Roundup) is preferable, coupling the Ceremony and
A Hymn to the Virgin with other 20th century English
Christmas music by composers ranging from Herbert Howells to
Peter Hayward.
That represents the other solution, which is to drop the Britten
connection and couple other Christmas music, as on CRD 3514,
where Nancy Hadden adds a selection of mediaeval and Renaissance
English carols and dances, or CRD 3490 where the Choir of New
College Oxford and Edward Higginbottom include music by other
20th century English composers.
Christopher Bell writes in the notes: “I have known, performed
and loved the piece over many years and each time I perform
it, I marvel at its fine melodies and inventive accompaniment.
For the same number of years I have been looking for another
piece of music for the same combination to pair with it in a
concert.” Now Signum offer us a new solution: Bell believes
that he has found that perfect companion in the shape of Elizabeth
Poston’s An English Day-Book, which he describes as a
wonderful piece. The downside, of course, as with several other
of the recordings which I’ve mentioned, is that one ends up
with 22 minutes of Christmas music, not suitable for the rest
of the year, and 27 minutes of music which is suitable for the
rest of the year.
Actually, too, there’s an element of special pleading here.
Bell’s note that “[Poston’s] handwritten manuscripts did not
always match with the harp part” is guilty not only of pleonasm
– what is a manuscript if not handwritten? – but also of a degree
of partial truth, since it appears that Poston’s original English
Day-Book was composed with a piano, not a harp accompaniment
in mind. The Bellman’s Song and Sweet Suffolk Owl
from the cycle certainly exist in that form, the latter also
in an orchestra version.
Add to that the fact that 49 minutes represents pretty short
value for a CD, when many of the other recordings that I have
mentioned offer more music at bargain- or mid-price, and two
questions arise in connection with this CD: is the rest of the
music worthy to stand alongside Britten’s minor masterpiece
and are the performances of all of the contents good enough
to stand against the opposition sufficiently well to justify
paying around £12 for such a short playing time? I have to answer
both with a qualified negative.
The Ceremony of Carols opens with a processional singing
of the plainsong Hodie Christus natus est. The choir
should sound as if approaching from at least the middle distance,
an effect not quite achieved on the new recording where the
procession seems to approach a little too rapidly. This is not
a serious fault and I don’t wish to make too much of it, but
it does make the opening a little less magic than it should
be, a fault exacerbated by the fact that the singing of the
chant would not entirely pass muster in most monastic establishments.
After that I have no serious quarrels with this recording. I
might have wished for a little warmer welcome in Wolcum Yole
and a touch more reflection in There is no rose, but,
again, these are not serious reservations. The singers capture
the frosty tones of In freezing Winter’s Night, appropriately
described the booklet as a plangent solo piece, and the transition
to Spring Carol excellently.
It’s always a problem to know how to pronounce the Late Middle
English and Early Modern English texts which Britten sets –
they’re not ‘old English’ as Samir Savant’s notes describe them:
that term correctly applies to the pre-1066 language also known
as Anglo-Saxon. Britten employs the part-modernised spelling
of the English Galaxy of Shorter Poems, from which he
took them, so it’s probably correct, as here, not to attempt
late-medieval pronunciation – about which, in any case, there
are conflicting scholarly theories. The diction here is so-so:
don’t expect to hear the words of Robert Southwell’s poem This
little Babe. That’s more the fault of Britten’s syncopated
rhythm than the singing, but enunciation is not one of the virtues
of this performance throughout. In any case, the texts are included.
What is described in the booklet as the angularity and dynamism
of This Little Babe is well captured.
The other pieces which are singled out in the notes, That
Yonge Child for its plangent solo, Balulalow for
its smooth polyphony, and As Dew in Aprille, again for
angularity and dynamism all live up to expectation – the effect
in the latter piece better achieved than by most boys’ choirs,
for whom Britten originally intended the work.
Claire Jones’ harp accompaniment is never intrusive, except
in the central solo Interlude, which she plays well.
One might expect a daybook to be a personal diary, the literal
translation of the German word Tagebuch, but Elizabeth
Poston’s English Day-Book is actually a sequence of sacred
and profane poems relating to different times of the day and
year. It opens and closes with Thomas Ravenscroft’s The Bellman’s
Song, the first appearance of which is followed by the compline
hymn Te lucis ante terminum, then an anonymous poem A
Night Curse. The traditional Mayday song Lemady,
a 16th century Charm Against The Bumble Bee, an anonymous
18th century poem The Noonday Heat, Thomas Nashe’s Spring
– also employed by Britten in his Spring Symphony – John
Fletcher’s Evening Song and Thomas Vautour’s Sweet
Suffolk Owl complete the eclectic mix. Despite the undoubted
virtues of the performance, I’m sorry to say that An English
Day-Book made little impression on me for good or ill. While
I was listening, I enjoyed what I was hearing, partly surprised
that there was really nothing here more angular than the Britten
– indeed, challenged to identify much of this music blind, I’d
have plumped for Britten – but I was unable to remember a single
piece afterwards.
The remaining works are very short and add little either way
to the CD. Each is introduced by its composer and full texts
of all the works are included in the attractive booklet, which
nevertheless manages not to inform us when the Poston work was
composed. I believe that the cycle as a whole was completed
in the late 1960s but that parts date from much earlier: Boosey
and Hawkes list Sweet Suffolk Owl and The Bellman’s
Song as having been published in 1925, both originally for
voice(s) and piano.
The recording is good throughout, though the voices occasionally
sound a little shrill, for example in As Dew in Aprille,
though whether that is the fault of the singers or the recording
I’m not sure.
With few disappointments in the Britten, good recording throughout,
and no competition for the rest of the programme, I feel that
I ought to be more enthusiastic about this CD. If you are tired
of seasonal fare to accompany Britten’s Ceremony of Carols,
it may be just the thing that you are looking for. Most listeners
will, I suspect, prefer one of the rival recordings mentioned
earlier. For my own part, I should be inclined to go for The
Sixteen on Hodie (Coro COR16004 or as part of the 3-CD
COR16054). I’m sorry not to be more positive about the work
of Elizabeth Poston: as a major figure in 20th-century
British music, including the founding of the Third Programme,
she deserves to be better known than as the composer of that
wonderful carol Jesus Christ the Apple Tree, her only
other work in the recorded catalogue, I think – it even crops
up on a Wedding Collection on Naxos – apart from one recording
of another carol, Entre les bœufs et l’âne (Remember
Bethlehem: Carols for a new Millennium, Christ Church/Darlington,
Metronome METCD1044).
Brian Wilson
Note added by Len Mullenger
There is one disc that has eluded Brian Wilson but which is
a MusicWeb best seller; take a look at the review:
Benjamin
BRITTEN
(1913-1976) A Ceremony of Carols, op.28 arr. For SATB and
Harp by Julius Harrison
Arr. Jaroslav KRCEK (b.1939)
Old European Christmas Carols 
Hana Müllerová-Jouzová (harp), Miroslav Kejmar
(flugelhorn) Boni Pueri Czech Boys Choir Musica Bohemica Praha/Jakub
Martinec Recorded 2004
ARCODIVA UP 0070-2 231 [54:08]
