Mary’s Lullaby dates from the period when Rutter was director of music at Clare College, between 1975 and 1979. It owes its inspiration to the panic of a television producer who calculated, following a camera rehearsal for a recording of Christmas music featuring the Clare chapel choir, that his programme was going to come in around three minutes short: ‘He asked whether I could by any chance write him something for the choir to sing the following morning!’ Rutter recalls. The dreamy Mary’s Lullaby, in the gently flowing triple-time typical of so many of Rutter’s slower carols, was the result. It is dedicated to the composer’s wife, JoAnne.
from notes by Andrew Green © 2001
