Sir Richard Rodney Bennett

• Biography

  

  Born 1936
  As one of Britain's most respected and versatile musicians, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett has produced over 200 works for the concert hall, and 50 scores for film and television, as well as having been a writer and performer of jazz songs for 50 years. Studies with Boulez in the 1950s immersed him in the techniques of the European avant-garde, though he subsequently developed his own distinctive dramato-abstract style. In recent years, he has adopted an increasingly tonal idiom. He was knighted for Services to Music in 1998.

  The Holly and the Ivy
  

  Sir Richard Rodney Bennett has composed Christmas choral music intermittently throughout his career; indeed he is at present the only composer from whom two carols have been commissioned by King's College, Cambridge for their "Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols".

  The Holly and the Ivy receives it broadcast premiere here with a recording made with the composer himself present.

  More like this: Benjamin Britten - St. Nicolas
  For this carol Sir Richard wrote a new melody that would fully express the natural rhythms and meanings within the traditional text and has conjured up a true sense of festive jollity with his consummate skill. His carol shares this feature with Benjamin Britten, in whose cantata St. Nicolas simple, child-like tunes are employed to great effect.

• 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 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
  • Bernard Hughes - I am Christmas
  • Peter Cornelius - The Three Kings
  • Kristina Arakleyan - New Year!