Customer Reviews

Christmas Now Is Drawing Near: Engl Folk Carols

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Christmas is arrived and in perfect form as soon as we put on this CD. The joy we get in hearing it over and over ( I am listening as I type)is tempered by the annoying realization that this group did not make a dozen more like it. I would happily buy them all.
I keep clicking five stars but it doesn't want to do it. I would give it ten.

I purchased this CD a number of years ago, and have found it to be one of my favorites. It is a superb balance to the "refined" style of carol singing I so enjoy from the famous English choirs. It also gives one something of a sense of what the rural carol tradition was like before the Victorians "gilded" it (though, of course, they also saved many carols, as well). The conceit of this album is that a group of carolers have come to your home, and proceed to offer a wide-ranging concert of Advent and Christmastide pieces (vocal, instrumental, and mixed). The more "primitive" versions of some well-known carols can be found here, as well as some truly ancient-sounding works that probably were current all the way to the end of the 19th century in some parts of England. The concert includes sections focusing on Advent, the Nativity, Christmas Legends, Carol Roots, Plenty and Poverty, The Christian Message, and Farewell to Christmas. All-in-all, I cannot urge you enough to acquire this CD if you are looking for a deeper, more "rustic" take on the Caroling tradition, and the application of these old texts/tunes to the spiritual journey made during Advent and the 12 days of Christmas.

I bought this CD several years ago and bought copies for friend after friend as Christmas presents. The style is pre-modern English folk carols, played on period instruments and sung in the everyday accents of the English countryside. One has a sense of Christmas relieving the tedium of a rural northern winter bringing a different, perhaps deeper, joy than it brings today. What other Christmas album could include the provocative line, "Remember, man, that thou art made of clay, and in this world thou hast not long to stay," and yet make the listener want to play the carol over and over? Of my many, many Christmas albums, this has emerged year after year as the favorite.

Absoultely splendid stuff. I bought this years ago and every Christmas I bring it out and play it. It's a good foil to the much more refined versions of this repertoire that we are likely more familiar with. The band itself is now gone, but at least two of the principals, Roddy and Lucie Skeaping, are still very much involved in music, he as a performer and composer and she as a presenter for the BBC.

is this dj sneak, or what? marry christmass all u merry people