A breviary is a book of prayers for the canonical hours. This one expands the term to cover the Christmas season, with new carols, not all of them religious, that reflect on scenes and themes of the most wonderful time of the year. All are quite recent, and they're very well chosen by director , with pieces that are compositionally and/or theologically innovative and are mostly by less-familiar composers. Consider 's , with a text of her own that connects with the presence of the Creation story in Advent services and places Eve in a matriarchal lineage leading to Mary. It fits well with the major premiere that closes out the album, , termed a "carol suite" by annotator . Or hear the work from which the album takes its title, ingeniously weaving Western melody with Indian ragas across its three movements. As distinguished as the music are the performances by the small group, unaccompanied or with organ or harp. The group marries precision to a strong and expressive sense of the text, and they're backed up well by (this is the choir's first album for the label), recording in the St.-Jude-on-the-Hill church in London's Hampstead Garden suburb. This album reached classical best-seller charts in the late autumn of 2023, and one leaves it with the feeling that the grand tradition of English choral music has gone on renewing itself beautifully. ~ James Manheim