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Daily album review 33: Two very different seasonal experiences from two very different Oxford choirs

By John Terauds on December 7, 2013

The Choir of Merton College Oxford at its service on the first Sunday of Advent this year, which inaugurated the chapel's new Dobson organ.
The Choir of Merton College Oxford at this year’s Advent Carol Service, which inaugurated the chapel’s new Dobson organ.

It’s hard to think of an Oxford University college as harbouring parvenus, but the five-year-old Choir of Merton College already boasts a sterling reputation proven by an excellent new album of seasonal choral music.

Here is a fantastic programme of choral music for Advent, the church’s solemn four weeks of introspection leading up to Christmas Eve. The college’s music master Benjamin Nicholas and veteran choral conductor Peter Phillips have assembled many new or newer works and arrangements that showcase the Merton College ensemble’s newfound status on a campus with hundreds of years of history wafting from every nook and archway.

adventYes, we hear works by canonic greats such as William Byrd, Michael Praetorius and Tomás Luis de Victoria, well sung by the choir of 30 young men and women. But the real interest comes from the new stuff, by composers such as James MacMillan, Judith Weir, Howard Skempton and the great John Tavener, who died last month.

In the opening antiphon, Ecce concipies (Behold, You Shall Conceive), composer Matthew Martin brilliantly harnesses the natural sibilance of the opening words to produce a dance-like rhythm.

Skepton’s O Sapientia (O Wisdom) and O Emmanuel by Eriks Esenvalds are but two of a set of seven antiphons commissioned by the college that are timelessly tonal a cappella treats, hanging suspended in the air like layers of incense smoke.

There are a couple of fine, new organ-only interludes, recorded before the Merton College chapel received its new organ this fall.

There is clear proof from the beginning to the end of this remarkable album — Advent at Merton, released by the Scottish label Delphian — that everything has been carefully thought through and planned to do justice to each text as well as to the meditative nature of Advent.

You can find out more about this wonderful recording here.

Also out with a new seasonal album is the choir from across Oxford’s High Street at Magdalen College.

MagdalenChristmas from Magdalen College, Oxford is all about tradition, from the voices of boys and men to Hector Berlioz’s Shepherd’s Farewell from L’Enfance du Christ and John Rutter’s contemporary classic, What Sweeter Music.

The boys sound great, if a bit less polished than the women from across the way. Many of the arrangements of the traditional carols are new, but they announce their changes with the utmost discretion, so as to not ruffle the aesthetic feathers of traditionalist listeners.

If you like the sound of Christmas as those folk of English heritage have known it since the turn of the 20th century, this is the new album of choice.

You’ll find the details here.

Here is the oddly edited promotional video for the Merton College album:

John Terauds

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