Gabriel Jackson’s The Christmas Story and Edward Nesbit’s Nativity

Gabriel Jackson’s The Christmas Story is one thing of a comply with as much as his The Ardour of our Lord Jesus Christ, written for the Choir of Merton School and likewise with a libretto assembled by Simon Jones. For The Christmas Story, Jones has taken a mixture of liturgical texts in Latin, the Gospel narratives and new poems to create a libretto that divides into 4 seasons, Introduction, Christmas, Epiphany and Candlemas. Every part begins and ends with a liturgical textual content sung in Latin, and every part mixes Gospel narrative with additional liturgical texts, and specifically commissioned poems. The result’s fairly various, and it’s extra a contemplation of the which means of the Christmas story than a pure narrative. In that it has important hyperlinks again to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The makes use of of the 4 sections implies that every focuses on a unique facet of the story.

Jackson’s musical strategy is equally various. The Latin texted gadgets are sung by the faculty choir with the Oxford Modern Sinfonia and these forces additionally current the Gospel narratives with soloists drawn from the choir. There may be little or no sense of recitative, of Gospel narration, as a substitute Jackson takes a extremely musical strategy and even these sections which seem like chant are the truth is pure Jackson. His use of the orchestra is distinctive too, he makes use of devices in teams, quite than a big orchestral bass. In order that the opening begins with a form of trombone fanfare resulting in choral chant, different devices within the orchestra embody saxophone and flute apart from single strings. So the the second merchandise on the disc is the acquainted passage from Isaiah however with a jazz-influenced saxophone alongside the voices.

Separate from that is the women choir, accompanied by organ, which presents the settings of the English poetic texts commissioned from Penny Boxall and Mary Anne Clarke. Solely on the finish, with an excellent setting of O nata lux de lumine, the Workplace Hymn at Lauds for the Feast of the Transfiguration ‘O mild born of sunshine’ does everybody come collectively in an excellent entire.

Studying in regards to the work, it’s fatally simple to assume that every one these various parts would shatter into items, that with out a clear, coherent narrative core, the outcome can be messy. Not a bit. We all know the story, and what Jackson and Jones do is give us a meditation on elements of it, with Jackson utilizing his various forces as a outstanding colouring field. That he can flip his hand to jazz-inflected music, one thing akin to world music or plainchant, needn’t disguise the truth that it’s his voice that runs via the entire piece and every musical aspect is an expressive system, used with a certain hand to create one thing bigger.

24 years youthful than Gabriel Jackson, Edward Nesbit has harked again to an older English custom by turning to the thriller performs. Nesbit’s narrative eschews the Gospel an as a substitute makes use of extracts from The Tilethatchers Place from the York cycle of Thriller Performs. Alongside these he makes use of poetry by the seventeenth century Metaphysical poet. The outcome has the aura of one thing that Britten may need created, this mix of the Metaphysical poets and the Thriller Performs being a potent one in early to mid-Twentieth century English music. However right here, Nesbit brings a bracingly modern modernism in that his music is lyrical and melodic. The narrative sections are largely given to Mary (Angharad Lyddon) and Joseph (Benedict Nelson) and the texts have a beautiful separateness from the Gospel, extra private maybe. And Nesbit writes music which is much from plain recitative, he has the present of writing apparently easy music, for simply baritone, harp and horn, say, the place the vocal line hardly strikes but within the palms of the performers right here, creates one thing quite particular.

Nativity is kind of a compact piece, but inside it Nesbit brings a outstanding expressive vary to the fore. Benedict Nelson’s first solo has a beautiful sense of quiet to it, but that is adopted by Angharad Lyddon in a vigorous scherzo, then her lullaby, the place once more, the vocal line is obvious but remarkably highly effective. It’s a testomony to Nesbit’s use of the refrain and to the effective efficiency right here that we neglect previous settings of the well-known Vaughan texts and focus on what we hear right here.

The work is available in at just below 33 minutes, and is accompanied by a set of carols, drawing their texts from the Wycliffe Model of the Bible so we hear acquainted texts in unfamiliar methods, and extra Metaphysical settings. There may be heaps to get pleasure from on the disc, and it’s the truth is a comply with up. Joseph Fort and his choir have already produced and admirable disc of Nesbit’s sacred music.

This is not an both or, each discs current splendidly engaged and fascinating works. And each do excess of entertain, they make you assume.