Here is as fine a survey of Advent and Christmas choral music as you’ll find these days, presented by one of the best and most reliable advocates for this repertoire. In my 40-plus years of reviewing recordings by British choirs, I have consistenly cited the Choir of New College Oxford for its superior treble sound (i.e., superior to King’s and Westminster) and for the unfailing, uncompromising care and musicianship that defined every recording, especially under former director Edward Higginbottom, a tradition that mostly prevails on this new disc.
The repertoire features many of the best known texts and tunes, but often in new or unusual settings. O come, O come Emmanuel appears in an arrangement by director Robert Quinney; In the bleak midwinter is not the Holst version, but rather a very different one by Richard Rodney Bennett; the descant for Once in royal David’s city is not the Willcocks standard but a gorgeous new one from Quinney. But we also hear several beloved classics, including Vaughan Williams’ setting of O little town of Bethlehem, Victoria’s O magnum mysterium, Willcocks’ O come all ye faithful, and William Mathias’ A babe is born. Francis Pott’s Balulalow, Charles Ives’ A Christmas carol, and Matthew Martin’s Nowell sing we are fully deserving but rarely heard bonuses.
As mentioned above, the choir is superb–my only reservations being that the treble solo in Balulalow is just slightly out of sync and oddly spotlighted; The angel Gabriel is prettily sung but tediously slow; and the overall acoustic is a bit more live and resonant than ideal. But for its engaging, often unusual repertoire and first-class performances of some of the finest Advent and Christmas choral music, this is an easily recommendable recording.
