A Christmas tale to warm the heart here. Debbie Wiseman and Alan Titchmarsh isn’t a combination that immediately springs to mind, but here it is, and a very successful one at that. Titchmarsh has a natural affinity for storytelling, and Wiseman’s music is atmospheric and naturally flowing. The story is by Titchmarsh himself, and this is their second collaboration (the first was The Glorious Garden, in 2018).
The disc includes not only text with wintry accompaniment, but a number of new carols, plus two musical suites and three piano pieces.
Debbie Wiseman has been quoted as saying:
It’s always such a joy working with Alan. We have developed a great partnership over the years and it’s a treat for both of us to share the magic of the season with audiences at this time”
… while Titchmarsh expains,
I wanted to evoke here that magical feeling in childhood when you wake up and there’s a whole winter wonderland outside. It was such a pleasure to work with Debbie to bring ‘Jack Frost’ to life
Frankly, Titchmarsh succeeds in his aim, with Debbie Wiseman’s music perfectly crafted. Grace Davidson is the soprano whose voice is perfectly suited to this music …. there are almost hints of The Snowman in both music and voice (in which of cause there was a boy treble).
One does have to scour the documentation for details of the orchestra and conductor, though -the information is buried right at the back of the booklet, Recorded at Synchros Stage Vienna, the band is the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Gottfried Rabl. The clearly excellent sound engineer is Martin Weismayr.
Some of the tracks are heard in new guises: the first track, Jack Frost, is renamed Summers Long Gone, while Jack Frost is renamed The Milky Moon. (this last a particularly tender take on the music, a siciliano-lullaby).
Grace Davidson, now rather more closely miked, or so it seems, and a little richer of voice, sings The Stable Carol, a gently-lilting Christmas tale. But The Stable Carol is truly the epitome of Christmas music, and as only Grace Davidson is mentioned I have to assume there is some multi-tracking going on here:
The tale itself is lovely, and there are some clever moments. IThere are descriptions of traffic (perhaps not as good as Gershwin in An American in Paris) and a rather nice reference to the “wrong kind of snow”.
Debbie Wiseman herself performs Stars and Stardust, a solo piano piece (I wonder if the recording is tweaked in some ambient way), a “siciliano” that seems to nod in multiple directions, not least to Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata.
This is the first of three piano pieces performed by Wiseman, the second Dream On (which sounds a bit like a piano reduction), the third The Lull a rather beautiful piece that works with voice-leading pithing choral statements then seems to reference Philip Glass.
Finally,the song Tell Me, Star, a rather folksy song to round off the collection. There’s an “official video” of this one:
… and here are Titchmarsh and Wise on the release:
Here’s the Amazon link; and this is the Amazon link for The Glorious Garden. Streaming below.
