EMR CD062 | DETAILS
  EMR CD062
   
 

ALPHA & OMEGA
Gustav Holst: Christmas Music
   
  Godwine Choir
Alex Davan Wetton; Edward Hughes (cond.)
John Wright; Richard Brasier; Tom Bell; Douglas Tang (org.)
   
  EAN 5 060263 500568

This delightful and joyful disc presents all of Gustav Holst’s Christmas music on a single disc for the first time, including the World Première recordings of a couple of carols. The Christmas music ranges from much-loved examples such as ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ and ‘Personent Hodie’ through to the substantial ‘Christmas Day’. The carols are complemented by organ music by Holst – the Four Voluntaries, as well as an arrangement for organ of the ‘Scherzo’, written as part of the composer’s unfinished second Symphony.

TRACK LISTING
     
Gustav Holst (1874–1934)
1. ‘CHRISTMAS DAY’ (1910)  
2. ‘IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER’ (1904)  
       
FOUR OLD ENGLISH CAROLS (1907)
3. ‘A Babe is born’  
4. ‘Now let us sing’  
5. ‘Jesu, Thou the Virgin-born’  
6. ‘The Saviour of the World is born’  
       
7. MARCH IN C MAJOR FOR ORGAN (1890–1891)
(World Première recording)		  
       
TWO CAROLS (1907–1916)
8. ‘A Welcome Song’  
9. ‘Terly Terlow’  
       
10. ‘ALLEGRETTO PASTORALE’ FOR ORGAN (1890–1891)
(World Première recording)		  
       
11. ‘LULLAY MY LIKING’ (1916)  
       
THREE CAROLS (1916–1917)
12. ‘I saw three ships’ (World Première recording)  
13. ‘Personent hodie’  
14. ‘Masters in this Hall’  
       
15. POSTLUDE IN C FOR ORGAN (1890–1891)
(World Première recording)		  
       
16. ‘OF ONE THAT IS SO FAIR AND BRIGHT’ (1916)  
       
17. ‘THIS HAVE I DONE FOR MY TRUE LOVE’ (1916)  
       
18. ‘BRING US IN GOOD ALE’ (1916)  
       
19. FUNERAL MARCH IN G MINOR (ORGAN) (1890–1891)
(World Première recording)		  
       
20. ‘A DREAM OF CHRISTMAS’ (1917) (World Première recording)  
       
21. ‘WASSAIL SONG’ (pub. 1931)  
       
22. SCHERZO FOR ORGAN (1933) (arr. Richard Brasier)
(World Première recording)		  

 

REVIEWS
Beautifully shaped by Benjamin Frith... Beguiling sounds, graced by the tawny richness and unexaggerated line of Richard Jenkinson’s cello playing... The sense of purpose and sureness of line of Ian Venables’ music is pure oxygen.
EMR CD31 | BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Exquisitely rewarding... Ravishing accounts.
EMR CD029 | CHOIR AND ORGAN
This is music of great beauty and integrity and the performances fully do it justice. It would be criminal to let it pass you by.

EMR CD028 | INTERNATIONAL
RECORD REVIEW

The Bridge Quartet approach these pieces with a sympathetic and insightful warmth, and confirm their ambassadorial credentials for British chamber music. A lovely, radiant disc.
EMR CD025 | Gramophone
Duncan Honeybourne’s playing is astonishingly affectionate, yet never saccharine... Honeybourne plays with suave confidence.
EMR CD024 | INTERNATIONAL PIANO
Rupert Marshall-Luck is an ideal interpreter: generously but not effusively lyrical; agile and athletic... The warm, folk-song like slow movement is at times almost painfully beautiful, with a shimmering pastoral central section... Marshall-Luck is, again, indefatigable and keenly picks up on the work’s melancholic strain.  Finely recorded and with comprehensive booklet notes, this is a must for fans of 20th-century English repertoire.
EMR CD023 | THE STRAD