Album: Choir of Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, Into This World This Day Did Come: Carols Contemporary & Medieval (Delphian)

Geoffrey Webber's approach to seasonal repertoire with the Gonville & Caius College Choir favours an austere, classical beauty to illuminate the connections between older medieval carols and new material, as in contrast between the 15th-century "Nowell Sing We" and Gabriel Jackson's more dynamic setting of the same text; both the 13th-century "Edi beo thu" and Stuart MacRae's contemporary carol "Adam lay y-bounden" employ a similar Middle English dialect.

It's the modern pieces, by such as Howard Skempton, Judith Bingham and Diana Burrell, which shine.

Download this God would be born in thee; Creator of the Stars of Night; Adam lay y-bounden