Well over two dozen commercial recordings exist of this enduringly popular carol and it is easy to understand why. First brought to light in 1966 when Rutter was an undergraduate at Clare College, Cambridge and studying harmony and counterpoint with Sir David Willcocks, Rutter showed the work to his teacher at his teacher’s request as what he described as ‘a relic of my school years’. The very first performance was by the choir of Clare College.

The opinion of Rutter’s music formed by Sir David Willcocks from that occasion led Sir David to offer for the work and others by Rutter to be published by Oxford University Press who still publish Rutter’s music today.

Rutter believes that his inspiration for the carol came from when he was performing as a boy soprano in Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, a work which also made a big impression on me when I played harp in it whilst at Exeter university. In this work, the character Amahl, suffering from lameness and using a crutch to walk, offers this as a gift for the men to take to the baby Jesus as it is the only thing which he has to offer. A miracle happened as a result and he finds that he no longer has need for the crutch and he heads to Bethlehem with the three wise men from the Bible story to see the new born baby Jesus. 

Rutter’s carol is not quite so dramatic, but still a humble shepherd boy goes to Bethlehem and gives what he can to the new born Jesus; his pipe playing.

Wikipedia tells us that, before the fall of the Soviet Union, this work became an icon of resistance to Soviet control by the Baltic States with faxes and photocopies of the work disseminated for choirs to perform as a sign of that resistance.

This work was originally scored for SATB choir with organ or string orchestra accompaniment but various other versions exist, including a brass band version and it is a real showcase for Tim, playing the obbligato part on his piccolo and flute!

Dave: This piece posed something of a technical challenge for all three of us, as Danielle hadn’t arranged (nor, obviously, had any chance to practise) the harp accompaniment when she and Tim were recording these pieces. 
Tim’s challenge was therefore to record his flute and piccolo parts without any accompaniment.

After stitching together the flute and piccolo parts to a working edit, I recorded Danielle such that could hear Tim’s parts while she played hers, with a click track in the gaps when Tim wasn’t playing.
So Danielle’s challenge was to record her part against a fixed recording, which is harder than it sounds when there are no drums!

Then I had to match them up, adjust any minor timing or tempo inconsistencies and try to make it sound like they played together although, to be fair, they were both amazingly rhythmically accurate. Hopefully, you won’t have realised until you read this that they didn’t actually play it together!