Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

The word carol has a long and interesting history. For most modern listeners it now means a sacred Christmas song (although they will probably not use the word "sacred") but in fact carols started life as circle dances with a simple melody and rousing refrain that told a story. Many carols were religious but were not confined to retelling the nativity and plenty of carols were secular. There are some interesting examples on this CD from Selwyn College, Cambridge. We open with three traditional carols that many of us expect to sing at least once a year: "Once In Royal David's City", "Ding! Dong! Merrily On High" and "Stille Nacht", the German original of "Silent Night". All are sung well but many listeners will already have other recordings of these classics and so may wonder whether they need yet another, so happily we move to the first of seven commercial recordings with the 14th century "Angelus ad Virginem" (and if your Latin is rusty remember it is the Christmas story and make a guess as to the translation). This is followed by the less well-known "The Little Road to Bethlehem" by Michael Head and then something really unexpected: a full choral arrangement of "Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer"! You know it and you will join in and if you sing in a choir you will be telling your conductor to take a listen too. The arrangement is by Sarah MacDonald, the director of the choir and it deserves to be heard (and sung). We also hear MacDonald arrangements of a traditional Canadian "Huron Carol", Coots and Gillespie's "Santa Claus is coming to town", and Berlin's "White Christmas" before concluding with the more traditional "O come all ye faithful" and "Hark, the herald-angels sing" both in the popular settings by Sir David Willcocks. In all we get twenty-one Christmas songs, mainly sacred and all performed very well indeed. The performance and audio quality are such that you really will not mind hearing some of the over-familiar numbers again and the lesser-known material is so joyful and so well done that even Scrooge would smile.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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