The sound of the choir of King’s College, Cambridge – its voices perfectly blended, its emotions restrained, its impact sublime – has become famous all over the world, and for many, the distillation of a particular kind of Englishness. This is especially so at Christmas time, with the broadcast of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, whose centenary is celebrated this year. How did this small band of men and boys in a famous fenland town in England come to sing in the extraordinary way they did in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries? It has been widely assumed that the King’s style essentially continues an English choral tradition inherited directly from the Middle Ages. In this original and illuminating book, Timothy Day shows that this could hardly be further from the truth.

Author Timothy Day Published by Penguin Books ISBN 9780141988597 EAN 9780141988597 Bic Code Cover Paperback