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This is a re-upload of my 2013 posting of this wonderful recording, here with the missing parts restored, and at 1080p resolution.
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My earlier upload of contained some audio faults, notably a truncated "Interlude" (during Marisa Robles' harp solo). For this update I used the original CD issue which I imported from the US - the only digital format copy I could find on the planet.
Original version here: https://youtu.be/pQyunriE1zg
The visuals are the same except for two photo substitutions.
Further details below:
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A Ceremony of Carols" Op. 28, is a choral piece by Benjamin Britten, scored for three-part treble chorus, solo treble voices, and harp. The piece was written in 1942 while Britten was at sea, returning to England from the United States.
The piece was written at the same time as Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia and is stylistically very similar. Originally conceived as a series of unrelated songs, it was later unified into one piece with the framing processional and recessional chant in unison based on the Gregorian antiphon "Hodie Christus natus est", heard at the beginning and the end. A harp solo based on the chant, along with a few other motifs from "Wolcum Yole", also serves to unify the composition. In addition the movements "This Little Babe" and "Deo Gracias" have the choir reflecting harp-like effects by employing a canon at the first in stretto (courtesy of Wikipedia).
Written for Christmas, it consists of eleven movements, with text from "The English Galaxy of Shorter Poems", edited by Gerald Bullett; it is in Middle English.
To my ears, this is a marvellous performance under choirmaster and conductor George Guest at St. John's College, Cambridge, recorded in 1965. Marisa Robles' harp playing here is a delight.
Details of images (interspersed with my own photographs of various places in the Derbyshire Peak District National Park, England):
1. "The Shrine of St. Ursula" - a carved and gilded wooden reliquary containing oil on panel inserts (87x33x91 cm) by Hans Memling (c. 1433 - 1494). Dating to c.1489
2. (at 7:20) "Angel Musicians" - oil on panel by Hans Memling (c.1433 - 1494). Dating to c.1480s
3. (at 9:40) Choir stall carving (C19) by Advent Hunstone and at 10:13 C15 misericord at the Church of St. John the Baptist, Tideswell, Derbyshire, England.
4. (at 12:11) Images (not by me) from the enthronement in March 2013 at Canterbury Cathedral of Justin Welby, as the 105th Archbishop of Canterbury.
5. (at 14:56) at St. Peter's Basilica, Rome
6. (at 20:22) "Adam and Eve" (1511) fresco ceiling panel in the Vatican State Apartments - attributed to Raphael (or Raffaello Sanzio) (1483 - 1520)
7. (at 21:34) as 1. above.
INDEX of the Movements:
1. "Procession" ("Hodie Christus natus est", Gregorian antiphon to the Magnificat at Second Vespers of Christmas)
2. 1:28 "Wolcum Yole!"
3. 2:48 "There is no Rose" (Trinity College MS 0.3.58, early C15)
4a. 5:22 "That yonge child"
4b. 7:13 "Balulalow" (The brothers Wedderburn, fl. 1548)
5. 8:32 "As dew in Aprille" (Sloane 2593, first quarter C15)
6. 9:37 "This little Babe" (from Robert Southwell's "Newe Heaven, Newe Warre", 1595)
7. 11:00 "Interlude" (harp solo - Marisa Robles)
8. 15:02 "In Freezing Winter Night" (Southwell)
9. 19:06 "Spring Carol" (C16, also set by William Cornysh)
10. 20:22 "Deo Gracias" (Sloane 2593)
11. 21:33 "Recession" ("Hodie")
Conductor: George Guest
Marisa Robles - Harp
Treble Soloists - John Bennett, Michael Matthews, Michael Turner
St. John's College Choir, Cambridge, England
A Decca (London) Recording (P) 1965
430 097-2
