CDG1155 H Goodall: Winter Lullabies - The Boys of Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford; Catrin Finch, harp

CDG1155 H Goodall: Winter Lullabies - The Boys of Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford; Catrin Finch, harp
Label – The Gift of Music

Cat. No. – CDG1155/nIncluding FRANCK Panis angelicus; GOUNOD La salutation angelique - Ave Maria; SCHUBERT The Lord is my shepherd; Ave Maria Op52 No6; FAURE En prière; Cantique de Jean Racine; GOODALL Winter Lullabies: Now when winter nights enlarge, Stille Nacht, Crossing the border, Duérmete mi niño, Sorrowful lullaby, Lullaby of winter; BRAHMS The harp resounds with wild refrain from Four Songs Op17 No1; HANDEL Ombrai Mai Fu ('Handel's Largo'); FAURE Ave verum; ADAM Cantique de Noël Adolphe.

An exciting major new commission from the pen of composer and TV star Howard Goodall, framed by famous, gentle, approachable music for winter and Christmas, sung by the heavenly boys' voices of Christ Church cathedral choir.

Winter Lullabies, for solo harp and boys' voices, comprises six loosely-interwoven movements, and despite Thomas Campion's jovial toast to the delights of winter with which it begins, the texts mainly centre on the hardship and the challenges of winter, particularly for mothers and their infants. The core of the work is a specially-written text in English and Gaelic, Crossing the border, by Irish poet Theo Dorgan. Whilst the central theme of the cycle associates secular issues of homelessness, displacement and flight with the Christian nativity story, there is also a general celebration of motherhood and the different moods that might be embraced by a lullaby. With this in mind, the composer has even revisited Josef Mohr's familiar text Stille Nacht, attaching to it a more dance-like musical texture than the well-worn Franz Gruber original. Two anonymous lullabies, one joyful the other sorrowful, from very different continents and centuries, are juxtaposed in the second half of the cycle, and the whole piece concludes with Lullaby of Winter, to Goodall's own text, knitting together lyrical and musical ideas from the previous songs.

Winter Lullabies was commissioned by Christ Church Cathedral Choir, receives its world premiere with Catrin Finch on this CD, and it was conceived with the richly robust, rhythmically energetic voices of Stephen Darlington's boy choristers very much in mind.
Price: £8.75 (Including VAT at 15%)

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