Few festivals are as rich in music as Christmas. And the thirst for music at Christmas seems never to be satisfied. The Christmas message of peace and goodwill is always relevant, whether we are thinking of our 'little world', our family and friends, or look out across the 'big world'. And perhaps, in times of tumult and struggle, it is all the more important to sing songs of peace and reconciliation.

In 1917 the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams arranged Nine Christmas Carols for the choir that he got together in the ambulance unit in which he was serving in Greece. A knowledge of this background gives an extra dimension to performing these settings. How strange the carol God Rest You Merry Gentlemen, with its message "Now to the Lord sing praises… and with true love and brotherhood each other now embrace", must have sounded as it was sung by the young soldiers in the presence of war and privations.