Gabriel's Message: One Thousand Years Of Carols

Various

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Cat No: 8554723

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 636943472323

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Gabriel's Message

Description
Gabriel's MessageOne Thousand Years ofCarolsThe medieval carol had its origin in dance-songs. The texts tackle avariety of subjects, but are often associated with religious festivals and,above all, with Christmas. There was, of course, a distinctly secular element,whether at court or among the people. The unfortunate fate of the dancers ofKolbigk is well known, with those who preferred to dance and carol outside thechurch rather than go inside condemned to dance for a year without stopping.Nowadays Christmas, always the subject of carolling, has claimed predominance,with earlier carol tunes adapted sometimes to new words and a host of popularhymns associated with the festival.Henry John Gauntlett's setting of words by Mrs Cecil Francis Alexander, Oncein royal David's city, belongs firmly to the nineteenth century and hasbeen popularized as an opening processional hymn for the Festival of NineLessons and Carols initiated at King's College, Cambridge, and widely imitatedelsewhere. Trained as a lawyer, Ganntlett won a reputation as an organist andchurch composer, while as a scholar he was much admired by Mendelssohn.Weather may change, but Gustav Holst's In the bleak midwinter, asetting of words by Christina Rossetti, has a firm place in the Christmasrepertoire. It is followed by the medieval In dulci jubilo, afourteenth-century melody here in the version harmonized by the English amateurmusician Robert Lucas Pearsall. Born in Bristol, he was able, as a man ofprivate means, to lead a varied existence, pursuing his antiquarian musicalinterests, notably at St Gall, to be received into the Catholic Church shortlybefore his death in 1856. His version of the carol dates from 1834, while hewas living at Karlsruhe.Donald Hunt's arrangement of Away in a manger is based on thework of the American gospel-hymn collector William James Kirkpatrick. The CoventryCarol returns to the medieval. It was used for the pageant of shearmen andtailors in the fifteenth century as an element of their traditional miracle play, witha subject, the Massacre of the Holy Innocents, reflecting the nature of theircraft.Good King Wenceslas brings together a thirteenth-century spring carolmelody with the now familiar words by John Mason Neale, whose translations andhymns formed an important element in the English Hymnal of 1906, which, underthe editorship of Vanghan Williams, drew on English Catholic traditions. Thepresent version is arranged by Reginald Jacques, for thirty years conductor ofthe London Bach Choir. The truth sent from above is a traditional carolarranged by Vaughan Williams, one of a set of eight published in 1919.God rest ye merry, gentlemen, another traditional English carol, is arrangedby David Willcocks, whose name is associated not only with King's College,Cambridge and its famous choir, but also with that of the London Bach Choir, ofwhich he became conductor in 1960. His arrangement of Gabriel's Message, witha text derived from the Latin by John Mason Neale, is b
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