Abstract
A double album of carols, both original compositions and new performing editions and arrangements, recorded by the composer with the same performers as the earlier Naxos Book of Carols. The recording realises in performance the compositional and editorial decisions the published collection sets down, and sustains them across album length rather than in single carols. The research question is what the carol form can carry: each carol embodies a specific compositional or editorial decision, and recording the whole sequence rather than isolated pieces tests whether those individual decisions aggregate into a coherent larger statement, and where they do not. Because the composer conducts his own editions and arrangements with the same ensemble that recorded the 2003 Naxos collection, the album also functions as a controlled comparison over twenty years: same voices, same director, a second body of carols, so the differences that emerge are attributable to the compositional and editorial choices and the development of the ensemble sound over that period.