Making your own Christmas recording seems to be the thing to do this year, and there are a number of CDs currently on offer from Irish choirs and music groups. The sound quality varies considerably, as does the fare on offer - a tribute, in the latter case, to the imagination of the music directors concerned. Hands-down winner as far as this reviewer is concerned is Sing, Choirs of Angels from The Lassus Scholars and Piccolo Lasso (DCF CD 001), which boasts some delightfully crisp choral singing in an attractive mix of old and new, plus a couple of Irish-language carols.
Where arrangements are used - some by John Rutter, some by music director Ite O'Donovan - they are clever and unfussy, with some sensitive piano accompaniment from Celine Walsh; for the big set-pieces like Hark! The Herald and O Come All Ye Faithful, O'Donovan wisely sticks to the traditional versions complete with soaring descant, organist Una Russell pulling out all the stops and some golden trumpet sounds from soloist John Walsh. A lovely open acoustic completes the enjoyment.
The acoustic on Scenes of an Irish Christmas (Viking Records, RTECD 211), with the Canzona Chamber Choir and Cor na nOg, directed by Blanaid Murphy and recorded at the Church of Adam & Eve on Merchants' Quay, is simply superb. The church's newly-restored organ, played by Paul McKeever, sounds positively regal, and there's some smashing singing - check out the silvery tones of boy soprano Macdara O Seireadain, or the choir's exquisite rendition of John Tavener's The Lamb - but I found Michael Casey's overblown arrangements of Hark! The Herald and Adeste Fideles maddeningly intrusive.
The attractively-packaged The Gift of Peace (Appletree Press) has a CD which unites the Palestrina Choir and the choir of St George's, Belfast, and also a beautifully-designed book with short meditations on the theme of peace by writers from Goethe to Gandhi. The singing on the CD is ultra-traditional in style, with generally broad tempi, but the somewhat one-dimensional acoustic doesn't, I'm quite sure, show these choirs at their best. The choice of material is lively enough, though, with new carols by Colin Mawby and John Dankworth nestling alongside the more traditional numbers.
Finally, if a Riverdance treatment of Ding Dong Merrily On High is your idea of hymn heaven, then A Celtic Christmas (Celtic Collections, KCDE 535) with David Agnew and David Downes is for you. Me, I'll stick to my good old Naxos Messiah: uplifting, upbeat Handel from The Scholars' Baroque Ensemble, and a snip at £9.99.
