Christmas now is drawing near.

Join me this afternoon to hear Rutland Boughton’s “Bethlehem,” a choral drama adapted from the 14th century Coventry Nativity Play. Composed in 1915, and written very much in the English pastoral idiom, the work incorporates settings of familiar carols, such as “O come, all ye faithful” and “The Holly and the Ivy.” If you gravitate toward the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, I think you’ll really enjoy this.

It will come your way following today’s noontime concert, as I sit the board for a recorded program, “A Spanish Christmas Celebration,” featuring the Philadelphia-based Piffaro, The Renaissance Band. WWFM’s David Osenberg will co-host with Piffaro’s founders and artistic directors, Joan Kimball and Robert Wiemken.

Piffaro’s next set of concerts, “La Nochebuena,” will take place this weekend, at Trinity Center for Urban Life in Philadelphia on Friday at 7:30 p.m., the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill on Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Immanuel Church Highlands in Wilmington, DE, on Sunday at 3:30 p.m. For more information, consult the group’s website at piffaro.org.

Rutland Boughton’s “Bethlehem” will begin at 2:00 this afternoon.

Join us today for theses ghosts of Christmases past, from noon to 4 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.