The oratorio is quite lovely, and I wish that the Choir had enunciated the lyrics better. I don't know if they were poorly miked or whether they are just mush-mouthing the words. Even the "Hosannas" in the finale are barely recognizable. If you were new to the piece, they could easily be mistaken for "ahhhs".
The choruses have never won much enthusiasm from Rozsa fans. How fitting that arch-contrarian Thor should sing their praises! The music is much simplified from the film scores, since these little pieces were intended primarily for church or school choirs. That was a logical publishing decision. There were many such groups in 1959. Alas, today's choirs are out of luck: the music is long out of print.
I think the most effective adaptation of the four Nativity tunes is the orchestral (non-choral) treatment in Christopher Palmer's Christmas Sequence. Reissues of John Scott's St. Paul's Christmas album can be found today.
Note that the "Kings of Bethlehem" piece is an original composition with no relation to the film scores. Likewise, some of Mary Ann Eager's mushy texts have nothing to do with the cinema sources. "The Mother's Love" in her lyric refers to the mother of Jesus.
I do find the Winchester Choir far superior to the BYU singers. And I'm glad that Intrada did not continue the misleading practice of describing this non-narrative collection as a "story of Christ in song."
The strongest music by far on the Intrada disc is the Opus 34 setting of the Twenty-third Psalm.
I bought this when first released by Intrada and it's a beautiful thing! Music, recording are superb.....Just a reminder what care and love Intrada brings to each project they work on. Their recording of Red House is near my favorite of all the re recordings they have done. But let's not forget their take on Herrmann's Jason and the Argonauts. Sure would be nice if they could reach their goal via Kickstarter to start a series of top notch re-recordings for all of us to enjoy....!
I love it. But to me it's more of a classical work....akin to Prokofiev turning Alexander Nexvsky into a cantata (as the most well known example, of course there's plenty of others).
I think the choruses might be my favourite part of Rozsa's entire career. I was never that into his loud, chromatic action music writing. I was far more drawn to the religious-type sound -- whether choral or orchestral.
