Sweelinck: Hodie Christus natus est

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 Vasari Singers have also recorded Gabriel Jackson’s Requiem (8573049).

The Vasari Singers’ Great British Anthems [8572102] was described as “essential listening” by Gramophone. 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, with recent trips to Canterbury, Salisbury, Bath and Ripon. 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.

The Colours of Christmas is a collection of the greatest Christmas carols by the composer/conductor whose music has, for many, been so associated with Christmas. Featuring the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and The Bach Choir, with guest artists Over the Bridge and conducted by Rutter himself.

The Colours of Christmas (track 2 from the album) is a newly composed carol by Rutter for this new album, and is testament to the very best of Rutter’s music. Newly orchestrated for this album are the carols Ding Dong Merrily On High and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. All recordings on this album are brand new.

Christmas resonates with the sound of familiar seasonal music - music that is evocative, uplifting, cheerful, and above all, comfortable. There can surely be no other body of choral repertoire that has such immediate appeal, and this comes about largely through widespread familiarity and love of the tried and true favourites. The Graduate Choir, NZ needs little excuse to break out the tinsel or to indulge in the beauty of some of the most enduring pieces of seasonal music.

This release presents several polyphonic motets from the Renaissance and Baroque periods in which the joy of Christmas Eve is gloriously portrayed. The Hamrahlid choir was founded in 1967, performing and touring extensively in Europe and of course, in the Choir’s home territory of Iceland.

Described by Choir & Organ as ‘a tremendous choir, with superb technique and an immense, expressive range’, Orphei Drängar give proof of its versatility in a highly varied programme which still manages to stay within the theme of Christmas: original settings and new arrangements of Swedish folk songs and Christmas classics, English carols and Broadway songs – with Stille Nacht, a Russian hymn in praise of the Holy Virgin and Eric Whitacre’s widely admired Lux aurumque.

Following the success of the beautiful a cappella choral album Peace: A Choral Album for our Times (AV 0039), the Handel and Haydn Society offers a seasonal offering that once again fuses the familiar with new works which are destined to inspire the festive imagination. Sample Jennifer Higdon’s atmospheric O Magnum Mysterium with glasses and chimes, or Eric Whitacre’s harmonious Lux aurumque, alongside longtime favourites such as Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming and The Coventry Carol in a unique arrangement with hand bells. Another special feature is the world premiere recording of Tom Vignieri’s Hodie Christus natus est, commissioned for the Handel and Haydn Society. For the ensemble’s Welsh-born Music Director Grant Llewellyn this recording is a deeply personal project, recapturing the annual spirit of caroling, maintaining tradition whilst forging new frontiers.