Bernard Hughes

• Biography

  

  Bernard Hughes's music has been performed by ensembles including the BBC Singers, the New London Children's Choir, and the Cavendish Singers at major venues in the UK and overseas. His Missa Sancti Michaelis has been performed many times in the last few years, including at Coventry and Ely Cathedrals. The Death of Balder, performed by the BBC Singers, was runner-up in the 2009 British Composer Awards. Recent premieres include the choral piece Revelation Window in Seattle, USA, and Bernard & Isabel, for narrator and orchestra, at Symphony Hall, Birmingham. Forthcoming premieres include A Medieval Bestiary, a major new commission for the BBC Singers, exploring the fantastical animal of medieval myth and legend, to be given it's first performance on 21st January 2011.

  I am Christmas
  I am Christmas sets anonymous medieval words in which the figure of Christmas himself, as the year and season draw to a close, takes his leave of "King and Knight, Earl, Baron and Lady Bright", calling out that "Another year I trust I shall, Make merry in this hall, if rest and peace in England fall".

  More like this: Arnold Schoenberg - Freide auf Erden
  Demonstrating that not all Christmas music is soft and gentle, Schoenberg's depiction of 'Peace on Earth' extends to discordant images of suffering, employing full-blooded crescendos and dissonances, yet also contains some of his most tender beautiful music.

• More Carols

  • David Briggs - Adam lay y-bounden
  • Carl Rütti - O patre unigenitas
  • Hermione Roff - The Virgin's Song
  • Andrew Simpson - I saw three ships
  • arr Malcolm Archer - Angels from the realms of glory
  • Sir Richard Rodney Bennett - The Holly and the Ivy
  • Sir John Tavener - Cradle Song
  • arr Sir David Willcocks - I saw three ships
  • arr Bob Chilcott - Sussex Carol
  • Richard Lloyd - St Joseph's Carol
  • Francis Pott - Balulalow
  • Alexander Campkin - Sleep, holy babe
  • Peter Cornelius - The Three Kings
  • Kristina Arakleyan - New Year!