S2.E27 A different collection of Christmas goodies - Ponchielli, Durufle, Soul Sanctuary Gospel Choir, Gluck, and Beethoven.

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Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young, Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

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Amil Khali Ponchiel was quite a prolific composer of operas in the mid-19th century, none of which you are likely to see performed in a place near you anytime soon. The work for which he is now most famous is a ballet, La Joconda, and within that the dance of the hours, depicting different times of the day. Ponchieli has Walt Disney to thank for bringing it to real prominence, by including it as one of the pieces in the film Fantasia, from which we heard the source was apprenticed in an earlier podcast. Ponchieli's music is set to a comic ballet in the film, featuring hippopotamuses, alligators, ostriches, and elephants. You will recognize the piece, I'm sure. It has touches of Tchaikovsky and Johannes Razor the Younger, but its instrumentation makes it very festive in nature. As part of that event, Alexander McCall Smith very generously wrote four new poems, meditating on the Christmas story, making them applicable to everyone of all faith or none. One of them, on charity, included the line that Charity Paul wrote is the greatest of those things to which we might aspire. He meant more than giving, the narrowing into which the word was contracted. Far more work was done by charity when he wrote that particular letter. He goes on to say that charity might show us how to live in times of international wrong or smaller local crimes. Maurice DeRoufle, who lived between nineteen oh two and nineteen eighty-six, summed up those sentiments in his anthem Obicaritas, sung here by the Cambridge singers and conducted by John Rutter. On that occasion, I was determined to have something different at what most people might expect of a traditional carol concert. So, as well as the readings being written, especially for the occasion by Abbey Morgan, we did a first in the cathedral by having a gospel choir. St. Paul's were obviously and understandably nervous about the idea. But to their enormous credit, once they had heard a sample of the singing, they gave it the Green Light. In fact, the Soul Sanctuary Gospel Choir was so good that the cathedral recommended them to somebody else for a completely different event in the same place. Here they are, singing two well-known carols.

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They really served us proud on the night with the Welcome Welcome And some captivity and wanting to get until the Son of God begoist in my way shall come to thee O kill thou thy head from depth of hell that he will say and give them victory rejoice in my way shall come to thee Ocome Naki of An open one makes the wind and leaves on eye and close up that come to the video.

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The flautist Karl Heinz Siller is accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Karian. We can't be certain, but most people accept that December the seventeenth is the date of Beethoven's birth in 1770. So I can't let that anniversary pass without a nod to the great man. His concerto for violin, cello, and piano now known as the triple concerto. It was written in 1803. It's a slightly old Peter, which a lot of experts are rather dismissive about. A later poem by Alexander McCall's in that event I spoke of earlier is titled At the Time of Earth. Where he writes that having a day for this, a day marked in red in the Malay calendar is a good reminder that something better can always be thought of. That we don't need to be called forever in the titles of recombination and our forgiveness. That starting something fresh is always possible. Thinking about a birth, even a humble one, is not a bad way of looking at the world. Is not a bad way of starting to heal. The West Eastern Divine Orchestra founded in 1999 by Daniel Barrenboyum and Edward Sayyid. It's made up of musicians from Egypt, Iran, Assyria, Palestine, Lebanon, Spain, and Israel. But one of the Israeli players put it very well. But one of the really great things is that it is a political statement by both aligns. It's more important not for people like myself, but for people to see that it's possible to sit down with Arabism play. The orchestra is a human laboratory that can express it to the whole world how to cope with the other. Where am I going with all this thinking? Well, the sentiment is expressed in the handy's poem, and those of the West and Eastern Divan Orchestra are very much aligned. And as it happens, I managed to find the third movement of Beethoven's triple concerto, in which the Lewis and the Sophie Motor on the violin, Yo Yama on the piano, Daniel Barrenboy on the piano, accompanied by the West East and Divan Orchestra. But I can't think of that time to use a particular recording.