Isobel Baillie (Soprano)
Steuart Wilson (Tenor)
Arthur Cranmer (Baritone)
The Wireless Chorus
A Semi-Chorus of Boys
The B.B.C. Studio Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Cyril Rootham and Stanford Robinson

Orchestra:
Concerto Grosso, No.26, in D (The Music for the Royal Fireworks)...Handel
Overture; Bourree; La Paix (Peace); La Rejouissance (Rejoicing); Minuet I and II
(Conducted by Stanford Robinson)

Isobel Baillie, Steuart Wilson, Arthur Cranmer, Chorus, Semi-Chorus, and Orchestra:
Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity (Poem by John Milton)...Rootham
(Conducted by the Composer)

For a good many years Dr. Cyril Rootham has been closely identified with the music of Cambridge. As Organist and Director of the Music at St. John's, conductor of the University Musical Society and University lecturer in music, he has done more than it would be easy to reckon to spread an enlightened enthusiasm for all that is best, both in old and new music.

But besides all the hard work and activity which these engrossing tasks entail, he has found time to compose a good deal of music of his own, distinguished by a very original outlook and a finely poetic quality of thought. Those who listen to this ode with the poem before them will have no difficulty in following it, and the best guidance which a mere paragraph can offer is to call attention to two principal themes, which appear in varied forms. One is first heard to the words (boys' voices) 'Who shall ascend to the holy place?' along with the solo 'Join thy voice unto the angel quire.' The second appears at the point 'At last surrounds their sight.' Another theme which is heard more than once is a carol from the Isle of Man: the orchestral basses play it first as accompaniment to the choir, as they sing 'It was the winter wild.'