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DCD34331-CD
£24.99
Long associated with the music of Gabriel Jackson, in 2020 the Choir of Merton College, Oxford and their director Benjamin Nicholas won a BBC Music Magazine Award for their recording of The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, a work which grounded its narrative of Christ’s suffering and humanity’s redemption in texts associated with the history of the College.
The Christmas Story, again with a libretto assembled by the College’s chaplain the Revd Dr Simon Jones, takes the same approach to tell the story of Christ’s birth. Spanning the period from Advent to Candlemas, it mixes biblical narrative with liturgical texts and four specially commissioned poems by members of the College.
The new poems are given to the College’s girl choristers (an independent part of its choral foundation since 2016), while the main body of the work is carried by the full choir and by an ensemble of flute, percussion, strings, saxophone and three trombones – the latter recalling the hieratic sonorities of the seventeenth-century works by Schütz and others which Jackson had in mind while composing The Christmas Story.
The Christmas Story is a very individual and strikingly original work. Both the music and the expertly constructed libretto are compelling ... Benjamin Nicholas leads a recorded performance that is assured and completely incisive. The singing of both choirs is marvellous. The clarity of diction and the disciplined singing is exemplary. As for the instrumental playing, it’s expert and accomplished from start to finish; I marvel at the sonorities and illustrative colours that Jackson obtains through imaginative scoring from just eleven musicians, plus the organ ... Gabriel Jackson has composed a work which is an important, eloquent and compelling addition to the Christmas repertoire. This highly accomplished and committed first recording makes the best possible case for it"
John Quinn - MusicWeb International
RECCOMMENDED - read his full review here
"If you find the whole Christmas-carol- with-mince-pie-and glass-of-sherry thing just too smothered in brandy butter for your taste and are searching for a truly new, sincere musical interpretation of the season, then Gabriel Jackson: The Christmas Storyis for you ... The Choir and Girl Choristers of Merton College, Oxford, and Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia, directed by Benjamin Nicholas, bring this scholarly work to life. It's not singalong stuff, indeed it's quite chewy at times, but it is excitingly modern and deeply sincere. And it's rooted in the college. The new Dean of Lincoln, the Very Rev Dr Simon Jones, was chaplain at Merton and compiled the libretto, using the King James Version of the Bible, part of which was translated at Merton, and he includes specially commissioned poems by two contemporary Merton poets, Penny Boxall and Mary Anne Clark. Don't peel the sprouts to this one, but sit down and absorb its many moments of beauty"
Release Date: 8 November 2024
Catalogue No: DCD34311
Total playing time: [73:41]
Recorded on 11-12 December 2023 in the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford
Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter
24-bit digital editing: Jack Davis
24-bit digital mixing & mastering: Paul Baxter
Session photography: Will Coates- Gibson / foxbrushfilms.com Design: John Christ
Booklet editor: John Fallas
Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.com
PREVIEW
And they were in the same country
The thrilling final moments of Jackson's The Christmas Story, filmed during recording sessions in Merton College Chapel ...
