There are two lovely Christmas Carols recorded in the 1980s with Camborne Town Band and Mousehole Male Voice Choir: 'Hark the Glad' is one of Cornwall's favourite Thomas Merritt carols, and 'Softly, Sweetly' is a beautiful and rarely heard carol I remember my grandmother singing. We've included a copy of the original sheet music and lyrics with the CD, for those who'd like to learn it. 'Steren Yn Nos' (Stars in the Night) is a previously unpublished song written by Richard Gendall, in Cornish - a beautiful and delicate air.
The cover photos I took myself - the front was taken on a beautiful still evening at Mousehole Harbour last Christmas. The tracks on the CD have been artfully cleaned, edited, processed and engineered by Mic McCreadie at Sound Logic Studios in Camborne - for which, many thanks, boyo!
The CD was launched at the Lowender Peran Festival in the Hotel Bristol at Newquay, on November 3rd-5th 2017. The talented Richard Trethewey gave a great talk on the Cornish language songs of Brenda on Sunday 5th, followed up by a concert in the evening when he sang two of those songs, accompanied by Camborne Town Band.
'Brenda at Christmas'
This lovely CD features songs of Brenda's that can be enjoyed at any time of the year - not just at Christmas time! The video link to the left is a short spiel by me made for the launch in November 2017, by Mic McCreadie.
The CD features 15 tracks - all songs with a seasonal flavour - a few carols, and others appropriate to wintertime. Every time we drove out in the car around Christmas, we loved to sing carols on the way... many were Cornish and traditional, some were more modern and popular, some weren't carols at all - but Christmas was always a time for singing.
Brenda said many times she'd like to bring out a Christmas album, but her failing health in later years meant it never happened. This CD contains a number of previously recorded tracks from her earlier albums, together with some unpublished recordings found on tapes of a New Years Eve session of Pipers Folk Club at Gulval Meadery in the 1970s, with Al Fenn accompanying. The CD can be bought from the SHOP page on this website.
