When the Angel broke his sled: Czech Christmas with a musical flavour

In this special programme, we offer a taste of Czech Christmas music through the centuries. We’ll be hearing from the 17th century “Christmas Songbook” of Adam Michna z Otradovic, one of the founding fathers of this country’s rich tradition of carols, with recordings by the Moravian Madrigalists, and a new CD by the Zvonecek (Little Bell) children’s choir. There’ll be a stirring Christmas Mass from the 1770s by Frantisek Xaver Brixi, and we’ll even be finding out what happened when the Angel of the Lord broke his sled, in a traditional Moravian Christmas rhyme.