Lux de caelo - Music for Christmas
The Choir of Clare College, Cambridge
The Dmitri Ensemble/Graham Ross
rec. All Hallows Church, Gospel Oak, London.
Texts and English, French, German translations included
Track-listing at end of review
HARMONIA MUNDI HMU907615 [68:05]
Just a year ago I greatly enjoyed a disc of music for Advent from Graham
Ross and the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge (review).
I’m delighted to find that they’ve followed up that release
with a collection of music for Christmas.
Their well-planned programme has a number of links running through it. One
such is connections with Clare College itself. One link is pretty obvious:
John Rutter, who really put the college’s choir on the map when he
was Director of Music (1975-9). Rutter has produced and engineered this
disc – as he did the Advent disc – and one of his most enduringly
popular Christmas pieces, Nativity Carol, finds a welcome place.
Other Clare connections may be less obvious – they certainly were
to me. Cecil Sharp, the great pioneer collector of English folk songs, was
an alumnus of the college. It was he who collected an eight-stanza version
of The truth from above and this unforgettably haunting tune is
heard here in Vaughan Williams’s wonderful arrangement, though I don’t
recall hearing as many as ten verses sung before and at that length even
this lovely carol is slightly in danger of outstaying its welcome. There’s
also a Clare connection, previously unknown to me, with Gabriel's
Message in that the English translation of this Basque carol is by
the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, a nineteenth-century college alumnus.
Another set of links comes in the middle of the programme where we encounter
a group of pieces by Michael Praetorius. These pieces are all given with
theorbo and organ accompaniment and very good indeed they sound. Intelligently,
Bach’s harmonisation of In dulci jubilo is included within
this group.
Towards the end we find Christmas pieces by two giants of the Second Viennese
School. I’m afraid Webern’s spiky Dormi, Jesu is not
remotely to my taste but Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden is
quite another matter. Written in 1906, it was the composer’s last
tonal work – and in it he pushes tonality to its limits. The music
is ferociously demanding on the singers but these students seem undaunted
by its difficulties. Usually the piece is performed unaccompanied but Schoenberg
also produced a version with instrumental accompaniment. I’m not sure
the piece is often given in this version – I can’t recall hearing
it – so it’s valuable to hear the composer’s alternative.
There’s a generous helping of more recent compositions and arrangements.
One that stood out for me was A babe is born by Mathias. Here the
players of the Dmitri Ensemble bring out the spiky nature of the instrumental
accompaniment in a more successful fashion than I can recall hearing before.
There’s a rather acerbic setting of the Coventry Carol by
Giles Swayne and the richness of Tavener’s Hymn to the Mother
of God is splendidly delivered. Graham Ross, the choir’s director,
contributes a version of Lullay, my liking for voices and harp.
It’s interesting though the ornamentation is rather too florid for
my taste. However, his a cappella arrangement of Still, Still,
Still is most attractive and the warm arrangement for voices and strings
of the Italian carol Tu scendi dalle stele is a delight. In complete
contrast Riù, Riù, Chiù, arranged by Noah Greenberg, is exuberant
and daringly earthy. This energetic performance is one of the best I’ve
heard of this traditional Spanish carol.
Throughout this programme the Clare College choir sings superbly, demonstrating
again that they are one of the finest Oxbridge choirs. The contributions
of the Dmitri Ensemble are similarly excellent. This is a collection of
Christmas music that dares to be different. Not everything here is completely
to my taste but I still found the disc absorbing and the musicianship is
consistently excellent. With very good recorded sound and a very well- produced
booklet this is an intriguing and enticing Christmas package.
John
Quinn
An intriguing and enticing Christmas
programme that dares to be different.
A second review ...
I reviewed this as a 24-bit download from eclassical.com
(it’s also available in mp3 and CD-equivalent 16-bit formats, all
with pdf booklet). As such it’s superior to the CD – there’s
no SACD equivalent – but I also listened to the mp3 download. In both
formats the sound is very good, so the CD, pitched between the two in quality,
should also sound fine.
This is a very fine successor to earlier Harmonia Mundi recordings from
Clare directed by Graham Ross: Veni Emmanuel (HMU907579 –
review
and DL
News 2013/17) and Stabat Mater dolorosa (HMU907616: Recording
of the Month – review
and DL
News 2014/4).
There’s nothing hackneyed here, but a good mix of the old and the
new. Traditionalists will look in vain for the over-familiar – no
O come o ye faithful or the like – but they need have no
fear about this mix of old and new: even the most avant-garde composers
seem to mellow when composing music for Christmas, Webern apart (see below).
Giles Swayne’s setting of the Coventry Carol has its angular moments,
but that’s very appropriate for a work whose theme is the murder of
the Innocents. It starts quietly, with tinkling celesta accompanying the
higher voices, but there’s no doubt about the violence when the men
join in with Herod the King,/in his liking,/charged he hath this day
… all younge children to slay, followed by about as cruel a shriek
of exultation from the whole choir as you’re likely to hear from a
mixed group of under- and post- grads.
By now John Tavener’s style is familiar and most of us have absorbed
it. The Hymn to the Mother of God has now clocked up 26 recordings;
I haven’t heard them all but Graham Ross and his forces capture the
timeless quality of his music as well as any performers that I have heard.
Graham Ross’s own Lullay, my liking – likely to become
one of Christmas favourites – and his arrangements of traditional
Italian carols add something new to the mix without sounding either sugary
or harsh – a perfect blend. Webern’s setting of Dormi, Jesu
is perhaps the most angular music here: he’s a composer whom I’ve
never been able to come to terms with and probably never will. Even Schoenberg’s
Friede auf Erden on the final track is much easier to come to terms
with.
David Willcocks’ arrangement of Quelle est cette odeur agréable?
is the most sugary confection on offer here. John Rutter’s Nativity
Carol is pretty sweet, too, and I know that many think his style too
overtly popular, but I’ve had a soft spot for his Christmas music
ever since a colleague, who couldn’t stand it, gave me an LP, one
of two recorded at Ely in the mid-1960s, with an earlier group from the
same college, the Clare College Singers, now available on EMI 9469472 (2
super-budget-price CDs).
I said there was nothing over-familiar but most of us will have at least
one recording of the three Prætorius works and his arrangement of Es
ist ein Ros entsprungen. Also, probably, of the Bach prelude In
dulci jubilo, but none of that should put you off purchasing this recording.
The performances are every bit as good as those on the two earlier albums
and the recording, as I’ve indicated, is very good. The tri-lingual
notes are brief but to the point. Unfortunately the explanation that Webern’s
Dormi Jesu is a two-part inverted canon didn’t endear me
any more to the music. More careful proof-reading would have eliminated
the missing t in our de force.
Brian Wilson
A very fine successor to earlier Advent and Passiontide recordings from
this choir.
Track-listing
Benjamin BRITTEN A boy was born (theme)
William MATHIAS A babe is born
Felix MENDELSSOHN Frohlocket ihr Völker auf Erden Op. 79,
No. 1
Trad, arr. Ralph VAUGHAN WILLIAMS:The truth from above
Trad. Old Basque Carol, arr. Edgar PETTMAN Gabriel's
Message
Michael PRAETORIUS Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern;
Quem pastores laudavere; Es ist ein Ros entsprungen; In dulci jubilo a 8
Johann Sebastian BACH In dulci jubilo BWV 368
Giles SWAYNE Coventry Carol Op. 77 No. 4*
Sir JohnTAVENER Hymn to the Mother of God
Trad. Spanish Carol Riù, Riù, Chiù
GRAHAM ROSS Lullay, my liking*
Trad. Italian arr. ROSS Tu scendi dalle stelle,
Austrian Carol, arr. GRAHAM ROSS Still, Still, Still
Anton WEBERN Dormi, Jesu
Trad. arr. Sir David WILLCOCKS Quelle est cette odeur agréable?
John RUTTER Nativity Carol
Arnold SCHOENBERG Friede auf Erden
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