Get excited for some glittering Christmas choral titles published by Oxford University Press! 

With a range of accompanied and unaccompanied carols by well-known composers including Mack Wilberg, Sarah Quartel, Bob Chilcott, John Rutter, and Cecilia McDowall, you’ll be spoilt for choice when choosing what to programme for this year’s concerts.

Explore carols with piano, organ, and orchestral accompaniments – from Michael Higgins’ Christmas Fantasy, to John Rutter’s new carol Christmas Child, and Sarah Quartel’s Long, long ago, evoking imagery of Bethlehem at the time of Christ’s birth.

Make your concerts shine with our selection of unaccompanied carols, featuring Laura Sheils’ lively setting of Adam lay ybounden, Cecilia McDowall’s dramatic and arresting Tota pulchra es or her lilting, joyful Of A Rose.

For each of our choral pieces, we provide information about ‘Difficulty’ levels to assist choral directors in understanding whether a piece is suitable for performance by their choir.

The descriptive levels are characterized in the following ways:

Very Easy

Straightforward harmonies and rhythms; mostly homophonic with no large vocal ranges; usually with supportive accompaniment.

Easy

Mostly rhythmically straightforward; possible straightforward key changes; limited amounts of divisi in places.

Moderately Difficult

More complex rhythms and counterpoint and/or harmonies; ranges may be broader; key and time changes and possible divisi throughout.

Difficult

Often includes multiple key and time changes; demanding vocal lines; divisi sections; complex rhythms.

Facebook

Email

Spotify

Yumpu

Connect with us:

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Copyright © Oxford University Press 2025

Privacy Policy | Legal Notice | Cookie Policy