New Recording off Signum Classics by Helen Charlston focuses on Elizabethan Christmas

 

New Recording off Signum Classics by Helen Charlston focuses on Elizabethan Christmas

 

A new recording off Signum Classics focuses on Christmas in Elizabethan times. By mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston and viol consort Fretwork, it was released in July 2021.

 

 

The recording includes pieces by  William Byrd, Anthony Holbourne, Orlando Gibbons, and Martin Peerson.

Signum Classics description is as follows:

With celebrations confined strictly to the 12 days from Christmas Eve to Epiphany, the preceding Advent was regarded as a time of religious introspection, with music composed to mark both fasting and feasting. Byrd’s consort songs for voice and 5 viols encompass this range, from the joyous Out of the Orient Crystal Skies – ending with an exuberant ‘Falantidingdido’, a word whose meaning is lost to history – to his Lullaby, a ‘song of sadnes and pietie’ that became one of Byrd’s most enduringly famous songs.

In 2021, Fretwork celebrates its 35th anniversary. In the past three and a half decades they have explored the core repertory of great English consort music, from Taverner to Purcell, and made classic recordings against which others are judged. In addition to this, Fretwork have become known as pioneers of contemporary music for viols, having commissioned over 40 new works.

Acclaimed for her musical interpretation, presence and “warmly distinctive tone” (The Telegraph), Helen Charlston is quickly cementing herself as a key performer in the next generation of British singers. Helen won first prize in the 2018 Handel Singing Competition and was a finalist in the Hurn Court Opera Competition, and the Grange Festival International Singing Competition.

From Signum Classic webpage: 

https://signumrecords.com/product/an-elizabethan-christmas/SIGCD680/ 

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