A captivating new recording featuring new and rarely-recorded Christmas music for upper voices, sung by the Choristers and Schola of St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin.

Two major works are featured: Mathias’s extended carol sequence, Salvator mundi, with its original accompaniment for piano duet, and John Rutter’s Dancing Day beautifully accompanied by harpist, Tanya Houghton.

The programme also features John Gardner’s popular Tomorrow shall be my dancing day, and the first recordings of a haunting arrangement by Alice Parker of the traditional Irish Wexford Carol, concluding with Stuart Nicholson’s riotous arrangement of I saw three ships come sailing in.

Also included are two contrasting works for solo organ showcasing the Cathedral’s magnificent Father Willis instrument.

The Cathedral Choir sings twelve weekly choral services in the Cathedral, including daily Matins – one of the very few places in the world to do so. The Choir is made up of boy choristers, girl choristers, a schola of senior girls, along with eight professional lay vicars choral. The choristers are educated in the Choir School, and the schola members in the Cathedral Grammar School. Saint Patrick’s is the only cathedral in Ireland with a daily schedule of choral worship, as well as having Ireland’s only choir school.