Most Christmas releases combine traditional carols with more contemporary music on a holiday theme, but Christmas Carols from Village Green to Church Choir, as the title suggests, goes in the opposite direction. The entire program consists of carols, with some of them done in such a way as to expose their roots in folk practice or presented in earlier versions than the one that has become familiar. The album accompanies a book of the same name, but it is entirely listenable without it, or as a précis of it. Really it could ...
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Most Christmas releases combine traditional carols with more contemporary music on a holiday theme, but Christmas Carols from Village Green to Church Choir, as the title suggests, goes in the opposite direction. The entire program consists of carols, with some of them done in such a way as to expose their roots in folk practice or presented in earlier versions than the one that has become familiar. The album accompanies a book of the same name, but it is entirely listenable without it, or as a précis of it. Really it could serve as an introduction to where Christmas carols came from and what kind of cultural background they represent. Conductor Andrew Gant, also the author of the book, puts together a program ranging from very simple versions of carols to arrangements from the 19th and 20th centuries (the church choir end of the continuum). Nothing departs far from the pieces' basic tonal structure, but there's a good deal of variety; nothing is repeated pedantically, and the program flows naturally....
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