News

There are always plenty of Christmas-music roundups this time of year. This one's different. The others usually focus on the newest offerings. Nothing I've gotten this year has really struck a chord, but there is no shortage of favorites from years past that have proven their merits and held up over time. It is those in the classical realm, where trends matter least; and choral, because it's sacred choir music that's at the heart of the celebration of Christmas, that are listed below. 

Ancient

If you want some Christmas music you don't already know by heart, just look further back in history.The early music movement of the past half-century has unearthed many long-forgotten masterpieces from the Medieval and Renaissance eras.

Sequentia: Aquitania: Christmas Music from Aquitanian Monasteries (12th century) (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi)

This was Sequentia's second album of Aquitanian Christmas season music, following on the heels of the much-praised Shining Light.

While the rest of his cohort have fallen by the wayside or been absorbed into the Hollywood system, the film-maker has stayed weird, as his new movie of erudite vampire love reveals

The word "hipster" invariably crops up in discussions about American film-maker Jim Jarmusch, not least because he looks the part. He is tall, lean, often wears shades and has a famous shock of hair that started turning silvery grey in his teens; his basso drawl completes the uncanny resemblance to a certain Hollywood great, which inspired Jarmusch to found a jokey secret society, The Sons of Lee Marvin.

Jarmusch is without a doubt the most rock'n'roll of film-makers – although he obliges you to define the term. He has worked with a lot of musicians, either as composers or as actors – Neil Young, Tom Waits, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, hip-hop producer RZA. But if you look at the breadth of Jarmusch's references,...

The son of a vicar (and Charles Darwin was his great-uncle), Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) became one of the most popular English composers. He studied under Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry at the Royal College of Music, but also read history and music at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he palled around with the philosophers Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore. He also went to Germany for lessons with Max Bruch, but ultimately rejected the 19th century German Romantic style Friendships with fellow Rcm students Gustav Holst and Leopold Stokowski later bore more fruit, in different ways: Stokowski, who moved to the United States, became Rvw's biggest supporter there; Holst and Vaughan Williams critiqued each others' work and joined in the study and collection of English folk songs. "The knowledge of our folk songs did not so much discover for us something new, but uncovered something which had been hidden by foreign matter,...

Britain's Princess Beatrice will welcome the Olympic torch in Leeds today (19.06.12). The 23-year-old royal - whose father in the Duke of York - will be one of a number of people who will take part in day 32 of the torch relay around the UK, which includes fundraiser Janet Baker and show jumper Harvey Smith. The princess will take the flame into Harewood House in Leeds, while it will also be taken along York's city walls and York Racecourse. It is the second time she has been involved in 2012 events following her race in the Olympic Park in March. The British royals have a lot of involvement in the London Olympics - Beatrice's aunt...