For multitudes of listeners, the sound of King’s is the sound of Christmas. And indeed, for those same listeners these original Decca performances (reissued on Australian Eloquence) of three of Benjamin Britten’s choral masterpieces, one of them a Christmas classic, have become the representative interpretations. While this Ceremony of Carols carries a lot of the charm and some of the mystery of the ancient texts and Britten’s perfectly imagined musical settings, there are better versions of this and the cantata Rejoice in the Lamb and A Boy was Born (which in effect is a kind of choral symphony). Those King’s boy trebles and the chapel’s famous acoustics are hard to fault, however, and original engineer Simon Eadon captured it all to stirring effect–reproduced here in vibrant if occasionally (in the full-voiced tuttis) saturated sonics–back in 1990.
As for the better performances, if you like these works–and who doesn’t?–you really should not miss the Westminster Cathedral Choir’s still-unmatched A Ceremony of Carols (Hyperion), a 1986 recording that remains as stunningly immediate and yes, mysterious where required, as even Britten could have hoped for. The Holst Singers’ A Boy was Born (Hyperion) features exceptional sound and simply smashing choral ensemble work (with the most perfect evocation of “In the bleak mid-winter” ever recorded) in this virtuoso piece that Britten wrote at the astonishingly young age of 19. (If you can find it, the out-of-print version by The Sixteen on Collins is equally wonderful.) This program’s best offering is Rejoice in the Lamb, with ideal soloists (the tenor and treble are especially lovely) and an innate sense of the work’s playfulness and seriousness. For an alternative with all-adult voices, don’t hesitate to try the first-rate performance by the Corydon Singers, also on Hyperion. In sum, this is a definite choice for King’s fans who’ve lost their earlier issues of these performances–and is a good prospect for those looking for perfectly acceptable versions of these classics, which are essential components of any respectable choral recording collection.
