A Carol Symphony – Victor Hely-Hutchinson [CD – Naxos 8.557099]
This is quite an unusual recommendation from me for several reasons, partly because it’s a classical music CD, which isn’t usually my main taste in listening, partly because it’s very Christmas related, and I’m not really a Christmas person, and also in part because its very related to the book and TV show I associate it with.
Grown up kids of a certain age will probably remember, with as much fondness as I do, the BBC adaptation of John Masefield’s ‘The Box of Delights’, starring Patrick Troughton, and shown over a number of weeks running up to Christmas 1984 (complete with Blue Peter features). It’s such a wonderful story, with amazing period dialogue which I sometimes can’t help adopting to this day (“Isn’t that the purple pim!”, “He’s been scrobbled”), great performances and (in the main) wonderful special effects for the time, plus Nick Berry’s first TV role as pirate rat. Yes, I know I’m digressing, but bear with me. The title music of the show (the version of Coventry Carol/ The First Nowell on the CD) is so beautiful and sad and somehow joyous at the same time, but the entire CD (and all of Hutchinson’s Carol Symphony) is used as the incidental music throughout the series. So while it’s a wonderful listen in its own right (especially at Christmas) it is essentially a soundtrack CD as well.
I have to admit I know bugger all about Hely-Hutchinson, but that doesn’t matter, I love his music. And I find it such a powerful and affecting set of music, if I need to find a certain mood for writing, and want some background music on, this just gets me in the right mood for more emotional creativity. Strangely the other similar music I use for this purpose is by the Mali Bluesman Ali Farke Toure, who couldn’t be more different, but I may write a blogpost on him too.