Everyone has their own Christmas ritual. For one musician friend, Christmas begins at 3pm on 24 December, when she pours herself a glass of champagne, turns on BBC Radio 4 and settles down to listen to the Choir of King's College, Cambridge singing A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols.
King's director of music Daniel Hyde is not remotely offended by this secular approach to his choir's religious celebration. In fact, during Covid he had a chance to do exactly the same thing (minus the champagne!) 'It was December 2020 and we were all shut down, but we had recorded a couple of rehearsals earlier in the month so we were able to produce a carol service without being in the chapel. I did rather enjoy sitting on the sofa at home and I would encourage anyone who's not here in Cambridge to do it too.' People write in to say that they are listening on the top of a mountain on a tinny little radio, or in the middle of the desert in the baking heat. That's the secret of its success - you don't have to be here. It's the idea that this is going on, and people can visualise where it is and the atmosphere of the place. The longest-established annual broadcast in history, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is now 95 years old. Additionally, Carols from King's, a televised Christmas service recorded in early December and also broadcast on Christmas Eve, celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2024.
We're sitting in Hyde's score-filled study, with its view of the Backs (Cambridge meadows and riverside), talking about today's recording session with the Britten Sinfonia. Hyde is conducting the orchestra and choir in seven carols by John Rutter (known to choirs all over the world as the 'father' of the Christmas carol), as well as Rutter's 20-minute piece Visions, to be released around Easter 2024.
Esta historia es de la edición Christmas 2023 de BBC Music Magazine.
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Esta historia es de la edición Christmas 2023 de BBC Music Magazine.
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Discovering Donizetti - Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day
Thanks to a two-year lockdown project, nearly 200 previously lost Donizetti songs will now see the light of day. For most people, undertaking a lockdown project meant learning to bake sourdough bread, getting fit with Joe Wicks, or taking up a language. But Professor Roger Parker, the eminent historian of Italian opera and emeritus professor at King's College London, had something far more ambitious in mind. He set about unearthing songs by Gaetano Donizetti - many of which had been lost since the composer's lifetime - and the enterprise turned into a two-year labour of love.
Composer of the month - Bohuslav Martinů - Though the Czech absorbed many influences from his exile abroad, his colourful music was always distinctively his own
The youngest of six, Bohuslav was a sickly child, and his father or older sister often had to carry him the 193 steps up to the tower. He was shy at school, too, though showed an early talent for the violin and gave his first concert at 14. By the following year, the future composer was off to the Prague Conservatoire to take the first, if faltering, steps towards a career in music.
Symphonies Beside the Sea- Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction
Before cinema, the wireless and coach trips cast them adrift, seaside orchestras were once a major holiday attraction. It's a dimension of music-making that once was integral to many a British holiday experience, yet now has all but vanished. The tide went out, you might say, on the professional seaside (or pier, or spa) orchestra many decades ago. In their glory days, though - perhaps a quarter-century on either side of 1900-these ensembles were everywhere, from Bridlington to Eastbourne, New Brighton to Worthing, Blackpool to Bexhill-on-Sea, Cleethorpes to Brighton... the list is astonishing.
Richard Morrison- Do Classical Works About Mortality Reveal More To Us As We Get Older? Is it inevitably true that, as we journey through the decades, we are better able to interpret or empathise with a profoundly death-obsessed masterpiece such as Schubert's Winterreise?
As we get older do we respond differently to that vast canon of music dealing with mortality? Is it inevitably true that, as we journey through the decades, we are better able to interpret or empathise with a profoundly death-obsessed masterpiece such as Schubert's Winterreise? Or do human beings possess such a flexible sense of empathy that we can relate to virtually any state of mind if it is evoked convincingly enough by a composer?
Do Notes Win Votes? - There are multi-dimensional ways that music is used by political campaigners and their supporters today.
It was a little bit of history repeating when Rishi Sunak announced the UK General Election to the heckling of his political opponents blasting out D:Ream's 'Things Can Only Get Better'.
Västra Karup Sweden
The spirit of soprano Birgit Nilsson is alive and well in the town of her birth, home to a festival dedicated to her memory
Federico Colli
\"At this moment in time we don't need more virtuosi. We need musicians to engage with the philosophy of music
Harmonic Progression
What happens when classical music-style levels of ambition, invention and sheer length are brought to pop? The answer, as Meurig Bowen explains, is Prog Rock
Golden years
Young musicians may be physically fit, but with age come the advantages of wisdom and experience
Sweet Sixteen
As The Sixteen celebrates its 45th birthday, founder Harry Christophers speaks to Andrew Stewart about directing a choral powerhouse
