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A seasonal concert featuring Berlioz’s luminous retelling of the Christmas story. The composer delved back into his tender boyhood memories for this unusual oratorio. While it contains the terror of Herod’s dream and the Holy Family’s flight, it’s also suffused with a gentleness not found in many of his works.

On hearing the first completed performance of ‘The Holy Family at rest’, Berlioz wrote to his sister: ‘It is really good, it is innocent and touching (do not laugh), in the style of the illuminations of old missals.’