This lovingly prepared collaboration between Apollo's Fire - led by Jeannette Sorrell; this project is her vision - and La Nef leaves behind any notion that the mixing of the sacred and profance belongs to the (post) modern era; it is a longstanding Celtic tradition. On these discs the Christmas myth is brought to vivid life: vernacular reels, drones, lullabies, and airs stand alongside carols and settings of the Mass proper. The performances (especially by soprano Meredith Hall) are an appropriate cross between the rough-hewn and the precise, with intimate, you-were-there sonics to match.