This is a very successful disc and, with one or two caveats,
it’s as good a Christmas recital as you’re likely to find this
year. Hilary Davan Wetton has assembled a collection of festive
music by English composers all of which, you have to keep reminding
yourself, was composed in the twentieth century. There are favourites
here as well as new discoveries: Holst’s Christmas Day
is an entirely new work to me but it is quite delightful. It
is an extremely attractive fantasia of mostly well known carols,
harmonised distinctively but still pleasingly. There is simple
festive merriment combined with vigorous contrapuntal weaving
of The First Nowell with Come ye lofty, and it
moves towards a wonderfully haunting conclusion. The Warlock
collection works extremely well too, the first and third carols
bright and extrovert while the central Bulalow is calm
and meditative. The wonderful Finzi cantata that gives the disc
its name gets a fantastic performance. The orchestra has a gorgeous
glow to it, from the celesta picking out the glinting frost
to the spiritual warmth of the string theme. Roderick Williams
sings as beautifully and intelligently as we have come to expect,
while Julia Doyle’s angel is bright and clear in both tone and
texture. The Vaughan Williams items are predictably fun. They
are folksong based and so you may well recognise some of the
melodies from other contexts. They are beautifully harmonised
(for the choir) and scored (for the orchestra) and the final
carol makes a rousing, wholly satisfying conclusion to the disc.
It is in the orchestral numbers that the City of London Choir
sound at their best and this is in part due to the excellent
acoustic of the Lighthouse, Poole. For the numbers without the
orchestra we move to St Paul’s School, Hammersmith; historically
speaking this is entirely appropriate as Holst, Howells and
Gardner all served as directors of music there, as did Wetton.
However the surroundings must have outwitted the engineers as
there is a notable shift in the perspective, distancing the
choir, almost casting a veil over them. They are also noticeably
breathy in much of their unaccompanied singing, especially the
Joubert and Howells numbers. The organ is far too loud in What
sweeter music, ruining the balance, but happily things come
into better alignment for Leighton’s Hymn of the Nativity.
It’s a shame that these things couldn’t have been fixed, otherwise
this recital would be wholly recommendable. Maybe it’s wrong
to be too picky, though: the good far outweighs the bad here
and at Naxos super budget price you can afford to treat any
music-lover with this, confident that they’ll be happy with
it.
Simon Thompson
Notes added:
Simon Thompson gives a very good evaluation of the new Naxos
Christmas disc, at the heart of which lies Finzi's wonderful
Christmas piece. However, intending purchasers may wish to know
one important piece of information about the performance, which
is nowhere apparent in the Naxos booklet or on the CD's jewel
case.
The version recorded by Naxos is the 1956 version that Finzi
made for that year's Three Choirs Festival, the premiere of
which he conducted in Gloucester Cathedral just weeks before
his untimely death. This version is scored for a much fuller
orchestra - including woodwind and brass - than that of the
original 1951 version, which requires just strings, a harp and,
at one point, a cymbal. The full orchestral scoring is more
colourful , of course, but the larger forces perhaps make Finzi's
piece a bigger, more 'public' work and without doubt some of
the intimacy and delicacy of the original is lost.
Perhaps the ideal is to have a recording of each version? And
anyone investing in this enjoyable Naxos disc will be able to
experience Roderick Williams singing the solo part, possibly
the best performance of the role on record since the one by
the incomparable John Shirley-Quirk on Richard Hickox's Decca
recording from the late 1970s - which uses the original scoring.
John Quinn
Classical Editor's Note
The early stirrings of the Finzi Renaissance of the 1970s saw
these two performing versions recorded and issued on LP within
a year or so of each other:-
The full orchestral edition was recorded by Vernon Handley for
Lyrita. The LP was SRCS93 http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2007/June07/Finzi_Loves_SRCD237.htm
The string orchestra plus harp and cymbal edition was recorded
by the young Richard Hickox for Decca-Argo on LP ZRG909 reissued
only once (I think) on CD on Decca London 'The British Collection'
425 660-2.
Julia Doyle (soprano); Roderick Williams (baritone); Mark Williams
(organ, celesta, piano) 
