Hearth
Christmas music arranged for string quartet
Miró Quartet
rec. 2025, Austin, USA
Pentatone PTC5187495 [62]
This early Christmas disc features the Miró Quartet performing new arrangements by a diverse group of composers of music with Christmas associations. Each composer was asked to choose as a starting point a work with a deeply personal meaning and then take the material on a journey. That has resulted in a welcome selection of music in a variety of styles. I won’t go through all of them but rather pick a few that stood out to me, as if from a Christmas selection box.
We are enticed into the disc by Brazilian-American Clarice Assad’s work. She throws us off track at the beginning with an atmospheric quotation from the French carol Il est né, le divin enfant, before the main material. This is a quicksilver, scherzo-like take on In Dulci Jubilo. The composer says she wanted to capture a sense of joy at Christmas, and for me she has certainly achieved that.
Kevin Puts then slows things down in his poignant take on The First Noel. Pedal points in the cello and then viola give the feeling of a small chapel harmonium to the sound. There is some beautiful part writing here and the careful use of double stops makes the ensemble sound larger than four players.
Karl Mitze’s arrangement of Deck the Halls is a busy, jostling take on the classic. As the tune derives form a Welsh melody, the composer throws in some Celtic folk fiddling and maybe hints of Bluegrass for good measure.
The Indian American composer Reena Esmail contributes I Wonder as I Wander,where the plaintive melody originally collected in the Appalachians by John Niles is effectively coloured by Hindustani filigree. Derrick Skye’s We Three – a take on We Three Kings – pays homage to his musical ancestry and contains hints of Assyrian ornamentation and African layering.
Anna Clyne contributes an original work, Mother’s Carol, which is a set of variations on the sixteenth century Coventry Carol. As it relates to the Massacre of the Innocents, this imaginative work is quite bleak, with extraordinary use of harmonics and the occasional quartertones. It is all rather beautiful but unsettling.
The weakest work on the disc is probably Michael Begay’s arrangement of O Come All Ye Faithful, which he says owes something to heavy metal and Twisted Sister, of which I know nothing. There are a few unexpected harmonic changes and some over-bowing of the strings perhaps to imitate electric guitar feedback, but in such good company it falls flat.
Jole Love gives us a rich and heartfelt take on Silent Night. It reminds me of Richard Addinsell’s music for Scrooge, the watching of which is a Christmas ritual in our household.
Songs of Christmas by pianist, composer and comedian Hyung-ki Joo ends the disc; it is his arrangement of an original work for violin and piano from 2017, a potpourri of well-known Christmas material often in alarming juxtapositions. It is great fun and has a surprise in it that I will not spoil here. It makes a great end to a great disc.
The programme is expertly curated by the quartet and there is an excellent balance between fast and slow, serious and fun. The project has clearly been a labour of love and the quartet plays wonderfully. The sound recorded in Austin is appropriately warm and welcoming. The notes by the arranger/composers are illuminating and all as different as the music. Lacking are biographical notes on the composers or the quartet. The cardboard casing, featuring a wintry night and a country cottage, is beautifully designed by Marjolein Coenrady. If you are seeking music for the holiday season which is a little different, you need look no further.
Paul RW Jackson
Buying this recording via the link below generates revenue for MWI, which helps the site remain free
Contents
Trad. In Dulci Jubilo (arr. Clarice Assad)
Trad. The First Noël (arr. Kevin Puts)
James Lord Pierpont (1822-1893) Jingle Bells (1857) (arr. Michi Wiancko)
John Niles (1892-1980) I Wonder as I Wander (arr. Reena Esmail)
Trad. Deck the Halls (arr. for String Quartet by Karl Mitze)
Trad. Ma’oz Tzur (arr. for String Quartet by Sam Lipman)
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) In the Bleak Midwinter (1906) (arr. Alex Berko)
Anna Clyne (b. 1980) Mother’s Lullaby (2025)
Trad. Wexford Carol (arr. Jeff Scott)
Trad. Halfspent, “lo, how a rose er blooming” (2025) (arr. Gabriel Kahane)
John Wade (1711-1786) O Come, All Ye Faithful (1751) (arr. Michael Begay)
Jacob Meidell (1778-1851) Dejlig er Den Himmel Blå (1842 ) (arr. Paola Prestini)
John Hopkins (1820-1891) We Three (1857) (arr. Derrick Skye)
Franz Gruber (1787-1863) Silent Night (1818) (arr. Joel Love)
Hyung-ki Joo (b. 1973) Songs of Christmas (2017) ( arr. by the composer)
