Benjamin Britten / Arthur Honegger- Split Release

Benjamin Britten- A CEREMONY OF CAROLS (1942)
Arthur Honegger- CHRISTMAS CANTATA (1953)

From the back cover notes (enclosed):

Although Arthur Honegger's Christmas Cantata and Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony Of Carols employ religious texts, neither is a religious work in the sense of music composed for liturgical use.
They might, rather, be referred to as celebrations: Honegger's of Christmas and of peace and good will among men of different nations; and Britten's of medieval life and religious attitudes as expressed in the popular carol
The Christmas Cantata is one of the last works of Honegger, the Swiss composer who died in 1955. Its score bears the place and date of completion, Paris, January 25, 1953, together with the note that the work is "after the sketch of January 24, 1941" . At that earlier time, Honegger had completed a portion of the work inspired by a poem of Caesar Von Arx. Von Arx died, and Honegger abandoned work on the original project,only to to take it up again twelve years later and fashion from it what is probably a very different work from that he originally had in mind. The Christmas Cantata is scored for baritone soloist, mixed choir, children's choir , organ and orchestra. (...) The work,while superficially not very typical of this composer, somehow still contains, in different application, the hallmarks of Honegger's musical style: the contrapuntal craftsmanship, the rather stern orchestration, the neo-classic interest, the final feeling of affirmation.
Benjamin Britten's A Ceremony Of Carols was composed in 1942, and is scored for treble voices (preferably boys') and solo harp. As its name indicates,it is based on carol texts, but it is not, simply because of that, a Christmas work; its texts include several that relate to other times of the year. There are eleven sections in the work, one of them, the fourth, having two parts.(...)
The work is representative not only of Britten's deep interest in medieval England, but of his ability to evoke it musically without the necessity of quoting medieval tunes.The work is at once both old and new, conveying the spirit of times long gone by through a medium and style that could be only of the twentieth century.




















Side One:

Benjamin Britten: A CEREMONY OF CAROLS (1942)

1- Procession (1:43)
2- Wolcum Yole! (1:28)
3- There Is No Rose (1:21)
4- That Yonge Child (1:37)
5- Balulalow (1:19)
6- As Dew In Aprille (1:03)
7- This Little Babe (1:35)
8- Interlude (4:24)
9- In Freezing Winter Night (3:28)
10- Spring Carol (1:12)
11- Deo Gratias (1:17)
12- Recession (1:57)


Side Two:

Arthur Honegger: CHRISTMAS CANTATA (1953) 24:30

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