Listening blind to a pile of Christmas discs, I was struck by this one particularly because all the music was unfamiliar, including the startling solo organ interludes – all from Nico Muhly’s O Antiphon Preludes and dazzlingly played by Stephen Farr. The Choir of Worcester College, Oxford is beautifully blended and varied in sound. A few of the 18 carols are from past composers – Lennox Berkeley, Edmund Rubbra, Richard Rodney Bennett, Herbert Howells – but there is a fine array of choral work by the living, showing how inventive and healthy this area of music-making is. Carols by Muhly, Gabriel Jackson, Peter Maxwell Davies, Colin Matthews and Michael Finnissy are among the long list, several of them world premiere recordings. An alternative, with traditional carols too: Dormi Jesu (Delphian), from the Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, directed by Geoffrey Webber.
