An English Christmas at Merton College

 

An English Christmas at Merton College

New Recording of Christmas Works features Chilcott, Rutter, MacMillan, Weir, Briggs, Hewitt Jones, McDowall, Panufnik, and Jackson

Digital Only

From the radiant simplicity of Bob Chilcott and John Rutter to the mystical intensity of Judith Weir and James MacMillan, the Choir of Merton College’s An English Christmas gathers a century of festive choral inspiration into one luminous album. Benjamin Nicholas conducts forces including the Oxford Philharmonic and Contemporary Sinfonia in music that glows with lyric warmth and orchestral colour. 

Alongside carols by Holst, Howells and Vaughan Williams are new works by Kerensa Briggs, Roxanna Panufnik and Cecilia McDowall — a celebration of both tradition and renewal, and of the uniquely English choral sound that has become Merton’s hallmark.

1. A great and mighty wonder By Bob Chilcott
2. Shepherd’s Pipe Carol By John Rutter
3. All bells in paradise
4. Advent Antiphon By James MacMillan 
5. Drop down, ye heavens, from above By Judith Weir 
6. Tomorrow shall be my dancing day By John Gardner
7. What child is this? By Thomas Hewitt Jones 
8. O Oriens By Cecilia McDowall
9. In the bleak mid-winter By Harold Darke 
10. Jesus Christ the apple tree By Bob Chilcott 
11. In dulci jubilo By Traditional 
12. Was I the lamb By John Rutter 
13. Sleep, Jesus, sleep By Roxanna Panufnik 
14. In the Bleak Mid-winter By Gustav Holst
15. O Mortal Man By Herbert Howells Choir of Merton College
16. It came upon the midnight clear By Edmund Sears
17. This is the truth sent from above By Traditional 
18. Silent night By Traditional
19. A Tender Shoot By Kerensa Briggs 
20. Toccata By Gabriel Jackson

https://www.delphianrecords.com/collections/new-releases/products/an-english-christmas

Gabriel Jackson and Merton College Tell "The Christmas Story" on New Album off Delphian

 

Gabriel Jackson and Merton College Tell "The Christmas Story" on New Album off Delphian

Editor's Note: Description is label's description.

Long associated with the music of Gabriel Jackson, in 2020 the Choir of Merton College, Oxford and their director Benjamin Nicholas won a BBC Music Magazine Award for their recording of The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, a work which grounded its narrative of Christ’s suffering and humanity’s redemption in texts associated with the history of the College.

The Christmas Story, again with a libretto assembled by the College’s chaplain the Revd Dr Simon Jones, takes the same approach to tell the story of Christ’s birth. Spanning the period from Advent to Candlemas, it mixes biblical narrative with liturgical texts and four specially commissioned poems by members of the College.

The new poems are given to the College’s girl choristers (an independent part of its choral foundation since 2016), while the main body of the work is carried by the full choir and by an ensemble of flute, percussion, strings, saxophone and three trombones – the latter recalling the hieratic sonorities of the seventeenth-century works by Schütz and others which Jackson had in mind while composing The Christmas Story.

GLOBAL RELEASE DATE:
8 NOVEMBER 2024

https://www.delphianrecords.com/products/gabriel-jackson-the-christmas-story

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