On these two discs Christmas music lovers will find 50 selections taken from recordings made by the famed Choir of King's College, Cambridge between the years 1964-1979. They are representative of the repertoire performed at the choir's legendary Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols services, including many of the "Green" and "Orange" Oxford carol-book pieces so loved by choral singers everywhere. Beginning with (what else?) a solo boy's voice intoning the first verse of "Once in royal David's city" and building to the full choir and organ verses as the singers process to the front of the chapel, we're taken on a memorable journey, reliving such classics as Boris Ord's setting of "Adam lay ybounden", Herbert Howells' "A Spotless Rose", numerous David Willcocks carol arrangements, Harold Darke's "In the bleak midwinter", Elizabeth Poston's "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree", and the Cornelius/Atkins "The Three Kings". Disc 2 offers both older works (Sweelinck, Gibbons, Weelkes) as well as new settings of old texts (Ledger's "Chester Carol", Mathias' "A Babe is born", Willcocks' "O come, O come, Emmanuel", Poston's "Angelus ad virginem", and Patrick Hadley's exquisite, ethereal "I sing of a maiden").

Not surprisingly, the choir's sound and performance standard are very consistent from year to year, although certain pieces are not as polished nor as carefully balanced as the rest, examples being "Whence is that goodly fragrance?" and (for some reason) the early works by Gibbons and Weelkes. There also are some noticeable edits (the end of the Hadley, for example), and extreme resonance and distance muddies detail on a few of the tracks. The Sweelinck is on the sluggish side, as is the Basque tune known as "Gabriel's Message"--but most of the singing is characterized by the crisp articulation, energetic expression, and full-bodied sound (with brilliant treble and rich-sounding men's voices) we've come to expect, whether a cappella or joined by organ or brass (especially effective in Willcocks' arrangement of "O come, all ye faithful").

King's fans will have most or all of these selections on various other recordings, but for completists, for those looking for a reasonable sampling of this choir's unequalled Christmas music tradition, or for listeners who just want some really fine choral music to play for the holidays, this set will give more than two hours of pure pleasure. In the years since these recordings were made, dozens of choirs have recorded these same works, some in better performances (including King's), many in superior sound--but no choir is more closely associated with this repertoire (indeed, its directors created, arranged, or commissioned much of it), and thus it demands a place in every Christmas CD library.

--David Vernier