Why buy a Christmas CD given you can now get any traditional carol online at a click? The challenge for any choir making a seasonal album – the trend now is for a more generic “winter” title – is to delve into the past or explore the new. In A Winter Breviary (Resonus Classics), St Martin’s Voices, directed by Andrew Earis, perform 21 tracks by 10 living composers, all premiere recordings. The range suits this elite small ensemble: from the near stillness of Sarah MacDonald’s Like the Snow in Winter to the catchy alleluias of Lucy Walker’s The Angels’ Song or the beguiling inventions of Roderick Williams’s Queen Elizabeth’s Winchester Carol. Also included here is a new cycle by Bob Chilcott, who, with his senior colleague John Rutter, has reinvigorated choral music immeasurably.
