Bethlehem gave great offence in 1926 when in the wake of the General Strike it was produced in modern dress with a capitalist-looking Herod and a miner's cottage for a manger. Generally, it is as inoffensive as any music on earth. The Christmas story is told in an adaptation of one of the medieval Miracle plays, with the Shepherds as jolly characters, the Wise Men (clueless in their dealings with Herod) presenting a more stately trio in the second half. There is no Slaughter of the Innocents and no raging in the streets on the part of Herod, who is here a high reedy tenor instead of Roaring Bill the Blacksmith whose deep bass would affright awestruck babes and tender maids. Well-known carols are incorporated as choral interludes, and the musical idiom is friendly and folky (Vaughan Williams thought that Boughton must have gone round collecting tunes he and Cecil Sharp had missed).
The Choral Drama was written for Boughton's recently instituted Glastonbury Festival in 1915 and makes fairly moderate demands upon its performers. Orchestration is for the most part light and considerate towards the voices, brass being added to give colour and a deliberately tawdry splendour to the royal court. Ballet music, which the composer allowed to have little point unless the dancing could be seen, is omitted in the recording, which also makes a few small cuts so as to prevent it spilling over, which it would do for only a few minutes, on to a second disc. All is finely played, sometimes to quite beautiful effect. The singing is rather more variable, with Helen Field bringing too operatic a vibrato to the essentially unsophisticated music written for Mary, and Richard Bryan being somewhat too pipey a Gabriel (resourceful as he is on the high notes). Roger Bryson is a well-cast Joseph, steady in voice as in character, Alan Opie is gratefully heard among the Wise Men, and Claire Seaton makes an impression in her brief appearance as a Believer. The children's choir contributes distinctively, and the choral passages are among the most delightful: indeed, sometimes inspired, as in the introduction to ''The First Noel''. Well recorded and well presented (with photographs of early productions, including the scandalous modern-dress of 1926).'