I have to second, heartily, Bonnie's recommendation of the setting of "Christmas Eve" by Hardy - it's a lovely piece. In fact the whole of "Hodie" is to be recommended. My favourite movement is the March of the Three Kings, where I will swear you can hear the thunder of elephants approaching, and their trumpeting as they get closer (althoug why elephants should be bringing the Three Kings to the spot I hadn't actually considered until now!!) I've sung the piece with my choir (Guildford Choral Society)in the past, and in fact they're performing it again in Guildford Cathedral on Sat December 2nd with the BBC Concert Orchestra. The performance is being recorded for Radio 3, so with luck, if you want to, you might get the chance to catch it on the radio over the Christmas period.

On the occasion of Ralph Vaughan Williams' birthday last week I was sitting in the Surrey History Centre peering at correspondence received by Lucy Broadwood from various composers - one of the letters was one from RVW, asking her to provide him with assistance in a lecture he was writing on folksong in 1902 - approximately 2 years before he collected his own first folksong in Essex. I came home to find this thread that day ... spooky! (His writing was dreadful, by the way!)