Composer: Benjamin Britten
Performer: Susan Gritton, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, David Goode, Holst Singers, St Paul’s Cathedral Choristers
Conductor: Stephen Layton
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Hyperion
Catalogue: CDA66825
Release: 1995
Size: 216 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
A Boy was Born, Op. 3
01. Theme. A boy was born
02. Variation 1. Lullay, Jesu
03. Variation 2. Herod
04. Variation 3. Jesu, as thou art our saviour
05. Variation 4. The three kings
06. Variation 5. In the bleak mid-winter / Lully, Lulley, lully, lulley
07. Variation 6. Finale. Noël
08. A Hymn to the Virgin
Christ’s Nativity
09. I. Christ’s Nativity
10. II. Sweet was the song
11. III. Preperations
12. IV. New prince, new pomp
13. V. Carol of King Cnut
14. A Shepherd’s Carol
15. Jubilate Deo in C major (1961)
16. Te Deum in C
This recording brings together a selection of Brittens choral music for Christmastide, a season much enjoyed by the composer to the end of his life and one in which he celebrated in an extraordinarily diverse manner. The earliest work is A Hymn to the Virgin, composed in 1930 to an anonymous fourteenth-century text. Christs Nativity is a fascinating work from Brittens student days which is here receiving its premiere recording. A Boy was Born has always been a central part of the repertoire. The sequence of five highly individual and virtuoso variations are set for mixed voices and boys choir while A Shepherds Carol, written in the 1940s after Brittens return from America reflects the easy, laid-back approach of American popular music of that period.