Nicola Lisle talks to director Harry Christophers ahead of the Christmas carol show in Oxford by The Sixteen

There’s a satisfying mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar in The Sixteen’s forthcoming Christmas concert — which, as director Harry Christopher admits, is “quite a rarity” for an ensemble best known for its forays into the unknown.

A Christmas Carol, which comes to St John the Evangelist next week, includes O Little Town of Bethlehem, In the Bleak Midwinter, Angels from the Realms of Glory and Peter Warlock‘s Bethlehem Down, as well as some lesser-known carols that Harry hopes the audience will enjoy just as much.

“For the last two or three years we’ve put together a Christmas programme and I try to introduce people to things they don’t know, and also make sure there’s something very well known in it,” he explains.

“I’ve included about three very well known Christmas carols, just done straightforwardly, simply and traditionally, no descants or anything like that.”

Descants, in fact, are anathema to Harry. “I remember years ago going to a concert of Christmas carols with a big orchestra and ridiculous harmonies, and I remember thinking then, why can’t we just hear the lovely tunes?

“And audiences love to hear them. They just sit back and imagine themselves by a nice warm fire drinking the mulled wine or something like that!”

Next week’s concert centres on the chant O Magnum Mysterium, with settings by Renaissance composers Palestrina and Victoria and the 20th- century American composer Morten Lauridsen.

“The Morten Lauridsen has become a favourite of practically every cathedral choir up and down the country, and it’s very atmospheric,” Harry says. “It will sound wonderful at St John’s.”

There are also, as Harry says, a few “oddities” in the programme.

“There’s Charles Ives’ A Christmas Carol. We think of Charles Ives as a very wild composer, who wrote crazy symphonies with really hair-raising harmonies, but this is very simple, which just shows what a great composer he was. He could write simply or he could be incredibly avant garde.

“Another oddity is John Ireland The Holy Boy, which is not done very much, but it’s a beautiful four-part carol.”

Whenever The Sixteen perform in Oxford it is, of course, a homecoming, because it was here, 35 years ago, that Harry — then a recent graduate of Magdalen College — formed a small choir with a few friends. That choir has outlasted many of its early contemporaries, so what is the secret of its success?

“A lot of it is to do with setting,” Harry feels. “We’re putting all this religious music back into a sacred setting. And I’m a strong believer that you have to construct a programme well.

“We’re very lucky that we have an association with Classic FM, and we featured in the BBC television series, Sacred Music, which is still ongoing. I think that’s had a big effect on the concert-going public.”

The concert at the SJE will certainly see The Sixteen in a sacred setting — one that Harry particularly loves.

“We always look forward to coming to the SJE. It looks good, it sounds good, it’s comfortable and it’s usually warm, which is a rarity for a church. I’m so pleased it is a concert venue. Long may it last.”

The Sixteen: A Christmas Carol
St John the Evangelist, Iffley Road
Thursday, December 18, 7.45pm
Tickets: Call 01865 305305 or visit ticketsoxford.com