Walton: All this time

This 2CD set reveals two sides of Walton, the composer of music for the voice. CD1 features the extravagant side of the composer with multiple choirs and a huge orchestra for swaggering performances of the Coronation Te Deum and Belshazzar’s Feast, both with Sir Georg Solti conducting. CD2, with all items released on CD for the first time, features the more intimate side of the composer, with settings of choral miniatures, from the earliest setting (Drop, drop, slow tears of 1917) up to the 1972 Jubilate. Simon Preston’s LP was released on Argo to mark Walton’s 70th birthday. The remainder of the items come from a L’Oiseau-Lyre LP coupling songs by Walton and Machonchy and performed by Heather Harper. A Song for the Lord Mayor’s Table was commissioned by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths for the first City of London Festival; the texts were chosen by the English dramatist and poet Christopher Hassall and the poems come mostly from 18th-century verse related to London. The collection is rounded off with Walton’s Three Songs to poems by Dame Edith Sitwell date from 1932, all based on the composer’s Façade.

The first of this month’s ‘double bill’ from Westminster presents a delightful and unusual selection of music for Christmas from the Abbey Choir. It encompasses all the diverse themes of Christmas which have inspired composers across the ages: light shining in darkness; the tenderness of mother and child; the fulfilment of promise; and the warm merriment of corporate celebration.

An excellent selection of contemporary carols features the composers Jonathan Dove and Bob Chilcott among others. The richness of twentieth-century church music is illustrated in works by Poulenc, Walton, Mathias and Leighton, and by the heartbreakingly lovely piece The little road to Bethlehem by Michael Head. Skilful arrangements of the traditional carols Silent night, In dulci jubilo and I saw three ships, complete this attractive seasonal release.

York Minster is the greatest medieval church in northern Europe. Here, the greater Festivals of the church’s calendar are celebrated with music tailored to the theme of the Day, and sung by the Minster’s magnificent choir, under the direction of Robert Sharpe.

This new recording, the first in a projected series, presents Epiphany Sunday at York Minster – the ‘twelfth night’ after Christmas Day, marking the pilgrimage of the Three Kings, ‘Magi’, or Wise Men, to the infant Jesus. The three services of the day - Matins (‘Morning Prayer’), the Eucharist or Holy Communion, and Evensong (‘Evening Prayer’) - are sung with a selection of the celebratory music that might be heard in the Minster on Epiphany Sunday.

In addition to Widor’s well-known large-scale Mass setting at the Eucharist, and famous canticle settings by Walton, Dyson and Howells at Matins and Evensong, there are new works receiving their first recording from David Briggs, (an Epiphany carol commissioned by the Minster in 2012), Philip Moore, and Richard Shephard.

Here is a beautiful new recording exploring the music and themes of Advent, including some well-known carols and antiphons alongside some newer, less frequently heard pieces. An ideal present!

The Choir of Queens’ College, Cambridge is well known in the UK, singing three times a week at services in Queens’ College Chapel. They also travel abroad outside the academic term, with recent tours to Hong Kong, USA, France, Germany, Italy and Belgium.

Silas Wollston, their director, has been principal continuo player and assistant conductor to Sir John Eliot Gardiner since 1999 and has a versatile and varied career as researcher, performer and composer.

Letting the voices of praise resound is just what this CD does. Performing some lesser known carols and some new ones the Plaxtol Scholars bring us warmly into the world of Christmas. The choir itself visits cathedrals the length and breadth of the land performing services at times when the local cathedral choir is taking a break. So come with us into that world and celebrate the birth of the Christ child.

A traditional Christmas service, from one of Oxford's finest buildings, the fifteenth century chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, where there has been a continuous choral tradition since the 1480s. Boys' voices soar in the fine acoustics, in an evocative and moving programme of Christmas music and readings.