Search - Vaughan Williams, City of London Sinfonia/ Joyful Company of Singers/ Sarah Fox/ Roderick Williams, Richard Hickox :: Fantasia on Christmas Carols/ The First Nowell/ On Christmas Night

RVW loved Christmas

Paul E. Stroble | Akron, OH USA | 12/07/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the early 1980s, I purchased a used, record club LP of Vaughan Williams' nativity play "The First Nowell." I've played the LP several times each Christmas and hoped eventually for a CD version to appear. This new performance under Richard Hickox's direction should bring a similar joy to listeners as I've experienced! The CD also includes the familiar "Fantasia on Christmas Carols" but in a previously unrecorded arrangement for organ and strings. The other premier recording is Vaughan Williams' "On Christmas Night," a lovely masque from 1926 based on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." Sarah Fox and Roderick Williams give fine performances."

This Will Get You In The Christmas Spirit

R. W. Rasband | Heber City, UT | 01/24/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD includes Vaughan Williams' classic "Fantasia On Christmas Carols", an old favorite which I was familiar with, but here appearing in an exciting alternate arrangement featuring strings and organ. This album also has two pieces that were new to me: one is "On Christmas Night" which is a ballet score based on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." The other which I really enjoyed a whole lot is "The First Nowell", a nativity play for soloists, chorus, and orchestra. This latter piece features some heartbreakingly lovely arrangements of some old English Christmas folk songs. The performances and production are exemplary. And if you are an Anglophile/Vaughan Williams fan like me, there's no better Christmas music. As one critic said, with this composer "one is never quite sure whether one is listening to something very old or very new." This makes for music which is at once vital and timeless. This is one of my new favorite recordings."