What Sweeter Music

The name John Rutter is synonymous with Christmas. The London-born composer’s interest in carols and choral music began when he was a boy chorister, and his earliest works (including the popular Shepherd’s Pipe Carol) were published while he was still a teenager. The ravishing What Sweeter Music was the first piece Rutter wrote for the Choir of King’s College Cambridge—commissioned for the 1987 service of Nine Lessons and Carols. A lulling, rocking introduction in the strings (or organ) sets the tone for this delicate setting of 17th-century London poet Robert Herrick’s verse, which celebrates the gifts—particularly music—we can offer the infant Christ. Imagery of meadows, flowers and cornfields finds echo in the gentle, organic swell of melody that runs right through this four-voice setting, which has the sense of a lullaby about it. Unison lines blossom delicately into passages of harmony, creating one of Rutter’s best-loved carols.