Carols from King's (BioVinyl)

Description

A vinyl transfer for one of Brilliant Classics’ best-selling catalogue items, pressed on audiophile-quality 140g ‘biovinyl’.The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge is synonymous with Christmas around the world, thanks to the annual broadcasts of its Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols. The service took shape in Truro Cathedral in 1880 and spread throughout the Anglican Communion before the Dean of King’s introduced it to the College in 1918 and the BBC began broadcasting it from there in 1929.On this compilation, as with the familiar liturgy, the sequence of carols opens with a boy singing the first verse of Once in Royal David’s City. This particular recording has further historical significance, in that the solo was sung (in 1994) by Guy Johnston, who has since become a renowned cellist.This generous 66-minute sequence features carols old and new, familiar and lesser-known, from The First Nowell and O Little Town of Bethlehem to modern classics such as John Tavener’s The Lamb and Judith Weir’s Illuminare Jerusalem, both commissioned by King’s for the annual service, but are now sung throughout the world at Christmas-time.The sequence is completed, like the service, by O Come, all ye faithful, featuring the famous descant and harmonization of the final verse by Stephen Cleobury’s predecessor as King’s Director of Music, Sir David Willcocks. The LP is manufactured at Optimal Media in Hamburg, Europe’s leading pressing plant for high-quality records, and pressed on 140g ‘biovinyl’.