Whereas Christmas musical contributions have been mainly vocal and choral – Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Handel’s Messiah to name but two such works – or seventeenth and eighteenth century concerti grossi and ‘pastoral’ symphonies, this unusual seasonal compilation presents twentieth-century orchestral music by British and South African composers for Christmas. Best known is Hely-Hutchison’s popular Carol Symphony in which each movement is based on a true carol rather than on Christmas hymns by named composers of earlier centuries. Patric Standford’s A Christmas Carol Symphony grew out of pot-pourri of seasonal tunes played to entertain his children in the framework of an eighteenth-century symphony.