Recorded in the chapel of Jesus College, Cambridge, 18-20 January 1998

The first half of this recording is devoted to the sacred repertoire of Collegium Regale, in particular the wealth of Renaissance music for men’s voices. William Byrd, arguably the foremost musical presence of the English Tudor age, is here represented by two contrasting works from his Gradualia, an encyclopaedic collection of Latin motets written for the major feasts of the Catholic church year. O magnum mysterium and Ecce advenit present very different images of Christ coming into the world, one of a tender babe in the manger, the other of a triumphant coming in glory.

Ante luciferum genitus, by Byrd’s Slovenian contemporary, Jacob Handl, is similarly triumphalist, ending with a cascade of alleluias as a fanfare of the Nativity. The flamboyancy of an earlier generation is here represented by Cipriano de Rore, a Flemish composer who spent most of his working life in Italy. Quem vidistis pastores, written in the rare number of seven parts (including three in canon), represents the combined choirs of angels with its final, blazing alleluia. Equally splendid is the Marian motet Beata es by the Spanish composer Victoria, who worked for twenty years in Rome before returning to Madrid. This motet wonderfully illustrates his characteristic marriage of classical Italian counterpoint with Spanish fervour and vibrancy. The Virgin Mary is also celebrated in a work from a very different tradition: Michael Praetorius’ harmonisation of the chorale Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen is typical, in its joyful simplicity, of the phenomenal amount of music which he wrote for the Lutheran liturgy.

The macaronic text of There is no rose, with Latin refrains between vernacular verses, reflects the miracle of the virgin birth, where both Heaven and Earth are constrained ‘in little space’. The Coventry Carol, another of the many surviving early English carols, is unusual in dealing with Herod’s Massacre of the Innocents; it was originally part of the cycle of mediaeval mystery plays performed annually in Coventry. The earliest music on this recording however is plainsong: the English chant Hodie Christus Natus Est, which was later incorporated by Benjamin Britten into his Ceremony of Carols, and the Gregorian Introit for Christmas Day, Puer natus est nobis.

Robert Quinney

The activities of Collegium Regale develop a Christmassy feel as the festive season approaches. Just as the Chapel Choir has its own traditional services, culminating in the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Eve, Collegium Regale also has its yearly rituals.

These include carol singing around the wards of Addenbrookes hospital, to the queue of people waiting on Christmas Eve morning for the Festival that afternoon, and in local hostelries. They also provide entertainment at corporate functions in both London and Cambridge.

A tradition which has produced such groups as the King’s Singers gives free rein to successive generations of Choral and Organ Scholars to exercise hyperactive imaginations by producing arrangements of the old favourites. Some of the songs on this disc, particularly the Christmas-related pop songs such as White Christmas, have lasted many years. Others, mostly hymns and carols, are more recent.

For many years Collegium Regale used the same arrangements and harmonisations as the Chapel Choir. As these became increasingly well known, some Choral Scholars felt the need to write their own less traditional versions. New arrangements of the old hymns sprung up with alacrity and it was only a matter of time before these were followed by other more secular carols, such as Deck the Hall.

This process is continued with two new arrangements written especially for this recording: The twelve days of Christmas and We wish you a merry Christmas. These last two, perhaps, show the lengths to which arrangers are prepared to go to break away from traditional carol singing styles.