Edward Higginbottom leads the Choir of New College Oxford in a solid performance of A Ceremony of Carols and a selection of British Christmas anthems. In the Britten, he offers a traditional approach in terms of tempos, and while he avoids the eccentricities and distortions that some directors perpetrate on the piece in trying to bring new light to it, he also misses the subtle spark that can make a performance transcendent. But in a work with so many possible pitfalls, a solid, technically secure, and musically sensitive ...
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Edward Higginbottom leads the Choir of New College Oxford in a solid performance of A Ceremony of Carols and a selection of British Christmas anthems. In the Britten, he offers a traditional approach in terms of tempos, and while he avoids the eccentricities and distortions that some directors perpetrate on the piece in trying to bring new light to it, he also misses the subtle spark that can make a performance transcendent. But in a work with so many possible pitfalls, a solid, technically secure, and musically sensitive reading is not to be taken lightly. The soloists are particularly fine, and their intonation and enunciation are exemplary. Harpist Frances Kelly finds just the right balance for a part that can easily be over- or underplayed; the instrumental underpinning at the end of There is no rose is beautifully audible, and the Interlude strikes an ideal tone of subdued reverence. The choir's tone quality is generally good, except that in the upper register, the boys' voices tend to sound...
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