At 9am GMT on each day of Advent, I’ll be posting a YouTube video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice. You can access the full Choral Christmas here.
Perotin: Beata Viscera performed by the Hilliard Ensemble
Early choral music is my passion, and we rewind around eight hundred years here. If you would like to know more about the piece there is an excellent blog post here (opens in new window / tab).
This piece is, as much as anything else, an adoration of motherhood and birth which carry strong biblical Christmas overtones.
I can’t find a publicly available score for this, let me know in the comments if you can!
At 9am GMT on each day of Advent, I’ll be posting a YouTube video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice. You can access the full Choral Christmas here.
Adolphe Adam: O Holy Night, performed by The King’s Singers
The King’s Singers are an American Christmas TV staple, and something of a musical phenomenon in their own right. This perennial take on the popular carol Cantique de Noel, or O Holy Night, is harmlessly cheesy.
At 9am GMT on each day of Advent, I’ll be posting a YouTube video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice. You can access the full Choral Christmas here.
Vivaldi: Domini fili unigenite
This piece is the sixth movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria, and celebrates possibly the oddest video of this Choral Christmas. I honestly have no idea what is going on, or who is singing. I will have latin scholars up in arms, but the text roughly translates as Lord, your only begotten son Jesus Christ.
Composed with strong infusions of French stylings this short movement invokes in me both the majesty of the Trinity, but also in the context of the biblical story of Christ, a nod to what I might sacrilegiously call the final chapter. A reminder to God (whatever that means to you) that his son exists (if you believe that) only because of the actions of the father. Joyous but also foreboding.
At 9am GMT on each day of Advent, I’ll be posting a YouTube video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice. You can access the full Choral Christmas here.
Herbert Howells: A spotless rose, performed by the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge
It wouldn’t be Christmas in England without the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge – not in our house, at any rate. In this video they appear performing a technically complex carol from Herbert Howells – a towering figure of sacred music in the Anglican church.
Anything Howells takes me back to my time in the choir of Hexham Abbey in Northumberland, so this piece sends a particular shiver down the spine.
Unfortunately there is a slight lip-sync issue on the video, but the sound is OK.
The score is not yet in the public domain, but you can access an alternative recording and transcript at the website of the Christ’s College Chapel Choir, Cambridge.
At 9am GMT on each day of Advent, I’ll be posting a YouTube video of a piece which, in my opinion, celebrates the best of music made by the human voice. You can access the full Choral Christmas here.
Audioboo introduction
An unscripted rambling intro:
Orlando Gibbons: O clap your hands, performed by Voces8
O clap your hands is a perfect piece for the octet Voces8, being as it is a piece for eight individual voices. Based on the text of Psalm 47 the piece is an Ascension day anthem, and so strictly speaking has no place in a choral Christmas. I try to avoid speaking strictly wherever possible.
Its enduring appeal is remarkable. The music we hear is a message first committed to staves around four hundred years ago.
This joyous cacophony of voice is the perfect way to end our first week. Sheet music can be downloaded from CPDL.
