A glorious collection of Christmas music spanning over 900 years, centered around Britten's 'A Ceremony of Carols' - a work seen as both a signal of Britten's turn back towards English musical and cultural traditions and as a distinctly modern composition. Owen Rees and the Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford present this alongside works that alternate between the early 17th century - by that most prolific composer and arranger of Lutheran Christmas music, Michael Praetorius - and the present: music by Judith Weir (1984), David Blackwell (2011), Jonathan Dove (2000), Dobrinka Tabakova (2018), Toby Young (2017), and Cecilia McDowall (2007). At one point we interrupt the pattern of alternation to look back half a millennium further than Praetorius, with Hildegard of Bingen's O virga ac diadema. 'An undoubted jewel in Britain's choral scene' (BBC Music Magazine), the Choir of The Queen's College Oxford is among the finest and most active university choirs in the UK. Previous releases with Signum A New Heaven (2017) and The House of the Mind (2018) both went straight to no. 1 in the Specialist Classical Chart in their first week of release.

Tracklist:

Drop Down, Ye Heavens, From Above
Es Ist Ein Ros Entsprungen
Lo, How A Rose E’er Blooming
Resonet In Laudibus
The Three Kings
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: Procession
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: Wolcum Yole!
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: There Is No Rose
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: That Yongë Child
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: Balulalow
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: As Dew In Aprille
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: This Little Babe
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: Interlude
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: In Freezing Winter Night
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: Spring Carol
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: Deo Gracias
A Ceremony Of Carols, Op. 28: Recession
In Dulci Jubilo
Good-Will To Men, And Peace On Earth
O Virga Ac Diadema
Geborn Ist Gottes Söhnelein
The Owl
Wie Schön Leuchtet Der Morgenstern
Now May We Singen
Puer Natus In Bethlehem

UPC: 635212062722
Label: Signum Classics
Release Date: 8.21.20
Format: CD

Ceremony Of Carols / Various - Ceremony of Carols (CD)