A Cavalier Christmas, The Ebor Singers, York Early Music Christmas Festival, National Centre for Early Music (From York Press)

A Cavalier Christmas, The Ebor Singers, York Early Music Christmas Festival, National Centre for Early Music

3:03pm Tuesday 6th December 2011 in Music news and reviews

As respite from the bustle of the six week shopping spree, The Ebor Singers presented a cabinet of Caroline Christmas curiosities at the NCEM.

The programme of music which might have been heard in the courts of Charles I and Henrietta-Maria in London and Oxford reflected the growing instability of Charles’ reign. It began with Gibbons and Byrd and ended with a note of pessimism from George Jeffreys and Thomas Tomkins.

Director Paul Gameson – unless he was conducting very subtly indeed – stuck to being a tenor, part of a beautifully blended set of men’s voices. The choir was underpinned by the excellent David Pipe on organ; and he also gave us a glumly pretty Pavan by Tomkins towards the end of the concert.

The first half was largely pastoral with high-class 17th Century versions of “While Shepherds Watched” from Byrd, John Amner, Anon. and Henry Lawes, and again with “Hark, shepherd swains” by Jeffreys in the second half. The jewel in the Caroline crown was Italian: Alessandro Grandi’s moving “O quam tu pulchra es”, for three male voices, shone among the Italianate style of Jeffreys not to the advantage of the English composer. There were distinctive and distinguished voices in all parts, but it was here that we heard what makes The Ebor Singers so special.

This was an interesting concert, and gave us an authentic glimpse of what a Christmas - that the Puritans were then anxious to suppress - might have sounded like it the years leading up to the civil war.

- Charles Hunt