Distinctive Take On A Choral Tradition

The BBC Music magazine Christmas edition boasts a cover disk with seasonal connections, the main work being Britten's choral piece St Nicolas. This was a commission for Peter Pears's old school Lancing College and this recording is from a live concert given back in the chapel at that venue last year. The forces concerned are the BBC Singers, Choristers of St Paul's Cathedral and the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Paul Brough with tenor soloist Daniel Norman. The instrumental scoring is distinctive for strings, piano and percussion and creates an evocative sound world. Britten weaves small elements of exoticism in with spare characteristically spiky sections and settings of two familiar old style straight ahead hymn tunes. Apart from the traditional connection of St Nicolas with cuddly old Santa, there isn't anything particularly Christmassy here, the libretto seems to be based on the life story of the saint; his calling, works and death. There isn't a libretto with the booklet however ( well, it is a freebie after all )and the notoriously plummy intonation of the BBC Singers makes it difficult to discern what is being sung. That drawback also applies to the filler where Andrew Carwood directs them in Howells's Three Carol-Anthems. These are attractively tuneful but the singers might just as well be singing wordlessly, I could just make out the word lullaby in the second setting since it is repeated so often.