Holiday bonbons!
10 favorite albums for the Christmas season
“I like to compare the holiday season with the way a child listens to a favorite story. The pleasure is in the familiar way the story begins, the anticipation of familiar turns it takes, the familiar moments of suspense, and the familiar climax and ending.”
—Fred Rogers
Let’s take a break from our Building a Collection series, and listen to some wonderful music from the Holiday season. Besides the meaning found in our spiritual or religious beliefs, and the comfort found in our traditions with family and friends, many of us love this time of year because of the music. I have sifted through many new Christmas albums from recent years, and the recommendations below are the classical recordings with Advent or Christmas themes I have enjoyed the most this year. I have tried to choose different types of recordings, some with more traditional carols but also newer compositions, and then some orchestral music as well. I hope you enjoy these selections.
One disclaimer, this is a list that focuses primarily on Christmas music, performed mostly by classical artists. The focus on Christmas music is not to forget there are other religious traditions observed this time of year as well. However, the music reviewed here is predominantly Christmas themed.
The first album I would like to highlight is by Owain Park and The Gesualdo Six, simply titled Christmas. Released in 2019 on Hyperion, what you will notice immediately when you hear the six male voices on this album is how extraordinarily well their voices blend together. The 30-year-old Park has done an impeccable job of selecting both the singers and the repertoire they sing. For this Christmas album, he has selected a nice mix of more traditional pieces such as Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen, In dulci jubilo, Coventry Carol, and Away in a Manger and some newer or less familiar works such as The promised light of life, Love came down at Christmas, and The oxen among others. I found their performance of Tallis’ lovely Videte miraculum quite moving. The Gesualdo Six move between styles and time periods effortlessly, and it is clear that Park and his singers are thoroughly embedded in the music, as it is delivered with amazing precision and depth of feeling. A wonderful album, and highly recommended.
Another recent discovery is the eight-member all-male vocal ensemble Cantus, based in Minnesota, USA. Their 2022 release on Signum titled Into the Light is a mix of traditional carols and newer works, and it makes for some very stimulating listening. Highlights include a marvelous setting of Joni Mitchell’s song River, a lovely piece by one of Cantus’ singers Chris Foss titled Love, the God Eternal, and Vegara’s wonderful Mensaje de Paz. The artistic quality of Cantus’ singing is outstanding, and their ability to vary their moods to match the style and personality of the music is quite interesting. A few of their stylistic choices are not always convincing for me, but overall the program is well-considered and well-performed. Personally I find the acoustic a bit over-resonant and my preference would be a somewhat “drier” sound, but it does add ambience around the music. The setting of O Magnum Mysterium by contemporary African-American female composer B.E. Boykin is haunting. Traditional pieces such as I Wonder as I Wander, Silent Night, and Still, Still, Still are given a bit of a different twist.
British harpsichordist and conductor Trevor Pinnock and the band he helped found, The English Concert, released an album of Christmas Concertos in 1988 on Archiv (Decca), and I return to it often especially for the excellent performance of Arcangelo Corelli’s Concerto grosso in G minor, Op. 6, No. 8, published in 1714 and commonly referred to as the Christmas Concerto. But Pinnock includes a variety of concertos from other composers such as Charpentier, Vivaldi, Telemann, and Handel. While this may be a “stealth” Christmas album, and there is no indication this is Christmas music just by listening, all the music on the album was written with Christmas in mind. Typical of PInnock and the English Concert, everything is performed with style with high quality sound.
The British a cappella octet vocal group Voces8 has gathered quite a following and won many awards for their recordings in recent years. They have a new release titled A Choral Christmas recorded together with the Voces8 Foundation Orchestra and conductor Barnaby Smith, on Decca. For me, the album is pleasantly reminiscent of the many Holiday recordings by the Boston Pops over the years. The works on the album are generally larger, choral arrangements of Holiday classics such as Joy to the World, Away in a Manger, O Come All Ye Faithful, Silent Night, In Dulci Jubilo, and Sleigh Ride. Bob Chilcott’s The Sleeping Child is ethereal and intimate, while American Taylor Scott Davis’ wonderful Magnificat alternates between louder and softer movements. Despite being played quite slowly, O Come, O Come Emmanuel is hauntingly beautiful and breaks into some quite interesting variations. All in all, a very enjoyable release.
English conductor Paul McCreesh is the founder and director of the Gabrieli Consort and Players, a period instrument group specializing in the music of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Their 1994 release of Michael Praetorius’ Christmas Mass or sometimes also known as the Mass for Christmas Morning on Archiv (Decca) is one of their finest recordings. They are also joined on this recording by the Boys Choir and Congregational Choir of Roskilde Cathedral. Praetorius was a German composer and organist (b.1571 - d.1621), and he played a large role in the development of particularly Lutheran music tradition from the late Renaissance into the early Baroque. The text used for the Mass setting here alternates between the original Latin and the vernacular German. McCreesh closes the album with a magnificent, large arrangement of the Praetorius carol In Dulci Jubilo. Indeed, the entire album makes for delightful listening, and like me you may not be able to resist playing it repeatedly. McCreesh researched what the original performance might have been like, and he and the musicians try to recreate that here. It is wonderfully jubilant music, perfect for the Christmas season, or anytime really.
The British classical and soul pianist and composer Alexis Ffrench released an album of solo piano Christmas music simply titled Christmas Piano with Alexis in 2023. Ffrench’s unique style of blending genres is fascinating, and while it also might make appropriate background music for a dinner party, the arrangements are interesting enough in their own right and Ffrench is a consummate artist. I particularly enjoy It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, O Tannenbaum, and The First Noel. It’s a very relaxed album, but well worth hearing and indulging in…and you may hear more than a hint of Vince Guaraldi as well in Ffrench’s playing. Good stuff.
Changing things up, another really interesting 2022 release comes from conductor Wolfgang Katschner and the Berlin-based instrumental ensemble Lautten Compagney. The album is titled Winter Journeys, recorded by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi. I found this album to be a real joy. Lautten Compagney are a group that focuses on early music, mostly Renaissance and Baroque, and they use a variety of instruments in unique and revealing ways. The music is mostly from the 17th century by composers such as Philipp Heinrich Erlebach, Andreas Hammerschmidt, Michael Praetorius, Heinrich Schütz and Johann Hermann Schein. The selections express different attitudes and feelings about winter and nature. For example, some pieces convey the harshness of winter, and others the hope for the coming of spring. Faith is also described as an anchor in uncertain times. Schütz's Christmas hymn Ein Kind ist uns geboren (A Child Is Born for Us) quotes two verses from the prophet Isaiah about hope for the coming of the Messiah, and Hammerschmidt’s Sei willkommen, Jesulein expresses joy at the coming of Christmas. The texts are nearly all in German. The singing and instrumental accompaniment are extremely well done, and the medieval sort of vibe created is unique and appealing.
Another fascinating recording I found this year is titled Sleep, Holy Babe from the Naxos label, a collection of Advent and Christmas pieces performed by the U.K. vocal ensemble Blossom Street directed by Hilary Campbell. Most of the album was actually recorded in 2011. The group Blossom Street is composed of nineteen gifted young singers, and was formed a decade ago at the University of York in the U.K. The album contains music from composers from the 20th century, along with two works from 16th century composers. I particularly enjoyed the two works from the 16th century, those being O Emmanuel by French-Flemish composer Pierre de Machicourt, and Quid petis, O Fili? (What are you asking for, O son?) by English composer Richard Pygott. The blend of the voices on these two works is really impressive. Also enjoyable are Anthony Mudge’s O Magnum Mysterium, Finzi’s A Lullaby, and in particular the lovely Sing Lullaby by Jonathan Rathbone. Even if some of the works are not necessarily lullabies (indeed even the baby Jesus could not have slept through some of the louder and more dissonant passages), but nevertheless it’s an interesting collection.
J.S. Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium or Christmas Oratorio has long been a favorite of mine, even though you won’t necessarily come away singing any carols. This is a massive choral work, as big as any of Bach’s choral works, but it is actually six cantatas connected together into one large work with a German text. There are many versions to choose from, but the one that stands out to me and that I return to each year is by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and the Concentus Musicus Wien. This recording on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi is from live performances at Christmas in the Musikverein in Vienna in 2006. This is the second time Harnoncourt recorded the Christmas Oratorio, the first being another very good performance from 1972. However, this later recording has better sound and better soloists. The soloists are tenor Werner Gura, alto Bernarda Fink, bass Gerald Finley, soprano Christine Schafer, and bass Christian Gerhaher. Finley, Schafer, and Gerhaher in particular are superb and give strong performances. Of course Harnoncourt was a pioneer in Bach scholarship and period performance, and from the opening chorus of Jauchzet, frohlocket there is a feeling of a real event. The choral singing is precise and spirited, and Harnoncourt thankfully resists being too idiosyncratic with phrasing and tempos as he would be more frequently in later years.
The last recommendation is really outside the classical genre, but I have really enjoyed it and so I have decided to include it as well. It is an album titled Advent Songs, and is performed by a group called The Porter’s Gate, released in 2021. The Porter’s Gate is a self-described “worship project” founded in 2017 by Isaac Wardell, and his wife Megan. The Porter’s Gate begins writing an album with a diverse gathering of songwriters, pastors and theologians who discuss a theme they see missing from religious music, such as vocation, lament and justice. I’m not sure what genre of music this fits into, but there are certainly folk roots to the sounds. On this album, I was particularly moved by He Comes, Benedictus, and The Reign of Mercy. For me, it just struck a needed chord for the season.
That’s it for now. Thank you again for reading, and I wish you and your loved ones a very happy and healthy Holiday season. The Building a Collection series will resume in the next post, so stay tuned for #20, Bach’s Goldberg Variations.
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Notes:
Myers, Ken. https://canticasacra.org. Recommended recording: Praetorius Mass for Christmas morning. December 31, 2018.
Post, Kathryn. https://religionnews.com/2021/12/10/the-porters-gates-new-advent-album-embraces-grief-and-hope/.
Quinn, John. https://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Oct06/Christmas
Some great ideas. Thank you. The Pinnock I play regularly at this time of year. Some wonderful music. The Gabrieli/Praetorius I don’t know - but will seek out tonight! Again, thank you.