Vaughan Williams: Christmas Music

Sarah Fox soprano
Roderick Williams baritone
Joyful Company of Singers
City of London Sinfonia
Conducted by Richard Hickox
Recorded in: St Jude on the Hill, Hampstead, London

This is the first time The First Nowell has been available on CD.

After years of gentle pressure from chairman Stephen Connock, who has also researched the background of the piece, we were finally able to secure funding to enable the first recording of RVW’s last work to be made. RVW was working on this composition on the last day of his life and it was completed after his death by Roy Douglas, working from RVW’s sketches. The First Nowell was written to order, as a sort of musical nativity play. While containing much that is original, it draws upon well known carols and on RVW’s treatment of them in earlier works celebrating Christmas, a festival that he particularly loved.
John Francis

For more details visit: http://www.chandos.net/CD_Notes.asp?CNumber=CHAN%2010385