A Little Child there is Yborn

These two contrasting a cappella carols show Maxim’s versatility and assured vocal writing. ‘The Word’s Desire’, a setting of a poem by G.K. Chesterton, is a particularly fine miniature. Maxim mirrors the text’s taut structure in his sparsely beautiful musical response. The initial line of each couplet is set for different voice combinations (S, SA, TB, SATB), to which SATB (with occasional division) responds with a restrained homophonic phrase. The harmony m imaginative use of chromatic alterations to create a tonal ambiguity that matches the text well, while each individual vocal line is straightforward and largely undemanding in terms of range. This would be an effective choice for a carol service or midnight mass. ‘A Little Child there is Yborn’, meanwhile, sets a more familiar text in sprightly fashion, with frequent alternation between 7/8 and 9/8 time. Rather more harmonically adventurous than ‘The World’s Desire’, this will suit a choir well0used to singing unaccompanied and that will not be daunted by some chromatic challenges.
Martin Clarke, Organists’ Review (September, 2022)