Modern aspects of the Christmas story: Gabriel Jackson’s The Christmas Story and Edward Nesbit’s Nativity

Gabriel Jackson: The Christmas Story; Choir of Merton College, Oxford, The Girl Choristers of Merton College, Oxford, Owen Chan & Francois Cloete (organ), Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia, Benjamin Nicholas (conductor); DELPHIAN
   
Edward Nesbit: Nativity, Wycliffe Carols, Metaphysical Songs, Four Christmas Lyrics; The Choir of King’s College, London, Angharad Lyddon (mezzo-soprano), Benedict Nelson (baritone), Anneke Hodnett (harp), Martin Owen (horn), Joseph Fort (conductor); DELPHIAN

Reviewed 24 December 2024

Two very different but equally thoughtful and engaging contemporary approaches to a musical telling of the Christmas story. Gabriel Jackson and Simon Jones combine contemporary poetry, Biblical narrative and Latin liturgical texts into a colourful and wonderfully diverse expressive whole, whilst Edward Nesbit turns to the York Mystery Plays and Metaphysical poet Henry Vaughan for something compact yet no less expressive

The musical traversal of the two great narratives of the Christian church, Christ’s birth and events leading up to his death, has taken remarkably different directions. There is a liturgical aspect to this, the church retains the reading of the Passion narrative from the Gospel as part of the liturgy, but the story of Christ’s birth tends to be split over the Christmas period, originally the Octave of the Nativity. This means that whilst we have Passions where the narrative is the core, Christmas stories can be more diverse. Just think of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with its six separate cantatas, or Handel’s Messiah where the first part tells the story of Christ’s coming more as something presaged than a narrative.

Two recent discs from Delphian showcase two modern composers’ rather different takes on the idea of the Christmas story. Gabriel Jackson‘s The Christmas Story features the Choir of Merton College, Oxford, the Girl Choristers of Merton College, Oxford, Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia conducted by Benjamin Nicholas in a large-scale work that has a text assembled by the then Chaplain of Merton College, Simon Jones. By contrast, Edward Nesbit‘s Nativity, features the Choir of King’s College, London with harpist Anneke Hodnett, horn player Matin Owen, mezzo-soprano Angharad Lyddon and baritone Benedict Nelson, conducted by Joseph Fort on a disc which showcases Nesbit’s Christmas music.

Gabriel Jackson’s The Christmas Story is something of a follow up to his The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, written for the Choir of Merton College and also with a libretto assembled by Simon Jones. For The Christmas Story, Jones has taken a mix of liturgical texts in Latin, the Gospel narratives and new poems to create a libretto that divides into four seasons, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and Candlemas. Each section begins and ends with a liturgical text sung in Latin, and each section mixes Gospel narrative with further liturgical texts, and specially commissioned poems. The result is quite diverse, and it is more a contemplation of the meaning of the Christmas story than a pure narrative. In that it has significant links back to Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. The uses of the four sections means that each focuses on a different aspect of the story.

Jackson’s musical approach is similarly diverse. The Latin texted items are sung by the college choir with the Oxford Contemporary Sinfonia and these forces also present the Gospel narratives with soloists drawn from the choir. There is little or no sense of recitative, of Gospel narration, instead Jackson takes a highly musical approach and even those sections which appear to be chant are in fact pure Jackson. His use of the orchestra is distinctive too, he uses instruments in groups, rather than a large orchestral bass. So that the opening begins with a sort of trombone fanfare leading to choral chant, other instruments in the orchestra include saxophone and flute besides single strings. So the the second item on the disc is the familiar passage from Isaiah but with a jazz-influenced saxophone alongside the voices.

Separate from this is the girls choir, accompanied by organ, which presents the settings of the English poetic texts commissioned from Penny Boxall and Mary Anne Clarke. Only at the end, with a glorious setting of O nata lux de lumine, the Office Hymn at Lauds for the Feast of the Transfiguration ‘O light born of light’ does everyone come together in a glorious whole.

Reading about the work, it is fatally easy to think that all these diverse elements would shatter into pieces, that without a clear, coherent narrative core, the result would be messy. Not a bit. We know the story, and what Jackson and Jones do is give us a meditation on aspects of it, with Jackson using his diverse forces as a remarkable colouring box. That he can turn his hand to jazz-inflected music, something akin to world music or plainchant, need not disguise the fact that it is his voice that runs through the whole piece and each musical element is an expressive device, used with a sure hand to create something larger.

24 years younger than Gabriel Jackson, Edward Nesbit has harked back to an older English tradition by turning to the mystery plays. Nesbit’s narrative eschews the Gospel an instead uses extracts from The Tilethatchers Place from the York cycle of Mystery Plays. Alongside these he uses poetry by the 17th century Metaphysical poet. The result has the aura of something that Britten might have created, this combination of the Metaphysical poets and the Mystery Plays being a potent one in early to mid-20th century English music. But here, Nesbit brings a bracingly contemporary modernism in that his music is lyrical and melodic. The narrative sections are largely given to Mary (Angharad Lyddon) and Joseph (Benedict Nelson) and the texts have a lovely separateness from the Gospel, more personal perhaps. And Nesbit writes music which is far from plain recitative, he has the gift of writing apparently simple music, for just baritone, harp and horn, say, where the vocal line hardly moves yet in the hands of the performers here, creates something rather special.

Nativity is quite a compact piece, yet within it Nesbit brings a remarkable expressive range to the fore. Benedict Nelson’s first solo has a wonderful sense of quiet to it, yet this is followed by Angharad Lyddon in a lively scherzo, then her lullaby, where again, the vocal line is plain yet remarkably powerful. It is a testament to Nesbit’s use of the chorus and to the fine performance here that we forget past settings of the well-known Vaughan texts and concentrate on what we hear here.

The work comes in at just under 33 minutes, and is accompanied by a set of carols, drawing their texts from the Wycliffe Version of the Bible so we hear familiar texts in unfamiliar ways, and more Metaphysical settings. There is lots to enjoy on the disc, and it is in fact a follow up. Joseph Fort and his choir have already produced and admirable disc of Nesbit’s sacred music.

This isn’t an either or, both discs present wonderfully engaged and engaging works. And both do far more than entertain, they make you think.