Boston Classical Review

Michael Barrett led Boston Cecilia in a holiday concert Sunday at All Saints Parish in Brookline.

Celebrating a birthday around the holidays can be a tricky proposition. Fortunately, the first concert of Boston Cecilia’s 150th anniversary season managed to avoid being overshadowed by the impending arrival of Yuletide.

Rather, “Blessed Cecilia,” the ensemble’s Sunday afternoon program at Brookline’s All Saints Parish, found a middle ground that allowed the group to dig into its rich history while also marking festal days upcoming and one just past.

The latter was the feast day of the choir’s namesake, the Roman Catholic patron saint of music. As it happens, she is commemorated on November 22^nd, which was also the birthday of Benjamin Britten, whose Hymn to Saint Cecilia anchored the proceeding’s first half.

Completed in 1942, Britten’s ten-minute score sets a tripartite text by W. H. Auden that invokes Cecilia to inspire mortals to create music. In this instance, the poet’s prayers were answered: Britten’s writing bristles with character and invention.

Sunday’s account, led by Cecilia music director Michael Barrett, benefited from strong diction and good tone. Though tempos in the opening section felt tentative, the collective sang with confidence and purpose, and there was no doubting the group’s security in the zippy fugal textures of the central movement.

The Cecilia ensemble also delivered several items by Daniel Pinkham with a certain pride of ownership. A longtime Boston musical fixture who died in 2006, Pinkham occasionally collaborated with the group.

His Cantate Domino blended spiky rhythms and a whimsically dancing accompaniment with chant-like, mostly unison choral writing. The Cecilia-commissioned Angelus ad pastores ait, on the other hand, showcased a surprising harmonic edge: its ominous pedal points and ostinatos suggested that, perhaps, a choir of angels suddenly appearing to shepherds in the middle of the night in the Judean hill country wasn’t exactly the stuff of a Hallmark calendar.

Pinkham’s Christmas Cantata remains his best-known work and Sunday’s performance of the 1957 hit reminded why: it showcases all the instruments—organ and brass choirs—plus voices to fine effect.

The introductory part of “Quem vidistes, Pastores?” might have benefited from a shade more tonal boldness on Sunday, yet the larger movement exhibited a good rhythmic presence and, even in the nicely weighted “choros angelorum” episodes, never wanted for limber spirit. The finale’s refrains were likewise agile.

In the central “O Magnum Mysterium,” the ad hoc brass ensemble and organist Kevin Neel exchanged affecting calls and responses. Here, voices sometimes struggled with intonation (especially early on), but the coda’s dissonances spoke cleanly.

The afternoon’s short numbers each came off well.

Herbert Howell’s A Hymn for St. Cecilia unfolded with all the grandeur and sweep of a knowing, 20^th-century Episcopalian hymn. Francis Poulenc’s Hodie Christus natus est was of another type: lithe and playful, its zesty little runs skittering about like kids on winter vacation.

The brass group got in on the action, too, playing George Walker’s setting of the hymn “Liebster Jesu” from his Music for Brass. This was prefaced by J. S. Bach’s setting of the same and the contrasts between the two—more of color rather than devotional tone—were subtle but ear-catching.

Meanwhile, Sulpitia Cesis’ Parvulus filius boasted both an antiphonal sound design and a dense, 12-voice texture. In the event, the latter hardly proved too thick, though the overall reading felt, at times, a touch stodgy.

In Norman Dello Joio’s To Saint Cecilia, Barrett and his combined forces managed the music’s climaxes with energy and color. Though some of the early introspective spots in this Dryden setting sounded raw, the Cecilia’s singing grew in polish as the performance proceeded. Later inward moments were confidently etched and the full complement reveled in Dello Joio’s Technicolor, John Williams-y finish.

Boston Cecilia plays music by Bach and Handel at 3 p.m. February 22, 2026 at Jordan Hall. bostoncecilia.org

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