Its subtitle is “The story of Christmas in readings and music based on the Springhead Christmas Play”. Springhead in Fontmell Magna, Dorset, is the family home in which the Gardiners celebrated every Christmas with a play. People from the farm and the village took part, and it was a great occasion for the children. Sir John, once (as he says) “a somewhat grumpy angel”, recalls the staging and rehearsals, some of the individuals involved and the performances themselves: “Even now I cannot hear the opening Gloria by Robert Cowper without sensing the complete darkness of the stage up to the moment when the two Angels with lighted tapers parted the curtains to light the candles set in the old painted cart-wheels”. Hence no doubt the title proper, “Once as I Remember”. But fear not, this is no licensed nostalgic indulgence: the words form the opening line of a sixteenth-century carol, and the programme justifies itself perfectly well on its own merits irrespective of family history. The spoken part, incidentally, is omitted from the record, though texts (mostly from Milton’s Nativity Ode) are printed in the booklet.

Between Prologue and Epilogue (or the Glorias of Robert Cowper and Thomas Weelkes) comes a sequence, mainly of carols and motets, assembled so as to illustrate the Christmas story in seven phases: “The Appearance of the Angels to the Shepherds”, for instance, begins with a fine richness of choir and brass, followed by a round, then Sweelinck’s unashamedly tuneful Hodie and the crisp, anticipatory excitement of Past three a clock. The next section, “The Birth”, corresponds to a symphonic slow movement or the “Et incarnatus” section of the Creed. Carols from many lands, including Mexico, have found their way to Dorset, and, though most of the music is old, some, such as the one by Sir John’s near-namesake John Gardner, post-date his own childhood participations. The performances are excellent throughout, singers and players all having the feel of the thing within them. The acoustic of the church at Salle in Norfolk is ideal, and Nicholas Parker’s production is both imaginative and unobtrusive.

-- Gramophone [12/1998]