Stephen Layton: Holst Singers - Britten: Christ's Nativity & other choral works

This recording brings together a selection of Britten�s choral music for Christmastide, a season much enjoyed by the composer to the end of his life and one in which he celebrated in an extraordinarily diverse manner. The earliest work is A Hymn to the Virgin, composed in 1930 to an anonymous fourteenth-century text. Christ�s Nativity is a fascinating work from Britten�s student days which is here receiving its premiere recording.A Boy was Born has always been a central part of the repertoire. The sequence of five highly individual and virtuoso variations are set for mixed voices and boys� choir while A Shepherd�s Carol, written in the 1940s after Britten�s return from America reflects the easy, laid-back approach of American popular music of that period.