This recording from Maddy Prior is a collection of ancient carols from across Europe, played by The Carnival Band on replicas of medieval instruments. It was recorded at The Quaker Meeting House, Frenchay, near Bristol. Tracks include "The Sans Day Carol," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman," "The Holly & the Ivy," "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear," and more. (Saydisc)

Vintage Christmas Trio is David Ian’s long-awaited full-length follow up to his debut success Vintage Christmas. His purest release to date, this album features instrumental-only jazz trio interpretations of Christmas favorites using the most minimal elements--highlighting Ian’s craft as pianist and arranger. David Ian’s delightful performances transport you to an era that birthed the most sentimental songs of this season. The opener, “Deck the Halls” welcomes in the Christmas spirit with a swinging trio. David Ian’s signature sound shines throughout the album as he transforms the often stately “Joy to the World” into a jazz/blues injected festivity and then carries the listener into a dreamier state with the ever-loved classic “White Christmas.” The lyrical bass solos of Jon Estes tastefully splash their way on numerous tracks supported by the clever drumwork of Josh Hunt, who together comprise a perfectly ornamental rhythm section. “We Three Kings” takes on a new form with a reflective mood; an unexpected arrangement of a Christmas classic, more forgotten in recent years. In “Silver Bells,” Ian masterfully and fluidly switches back and forth from swing to straight time. The close of the album is a solemn “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” stripped down to just piano and percussion. If you listen closely, your ears might catch the chirps of a winter bird complementing this moving musical performance.

Each Christmas season at Brigham Young University over 500 vocalists and instrumentalists celebrate the season in song. Handpicked from the largest private student body in the country, these students comprise four nationally and internationally acclaimed choirs and the highly praised Philharmonic Orchestra. These musical organizations are known for their unity, due in part to the superb technical proficiency achieved under the hands of choral conductors Rosalind Hall, Dr. Andrew Crane, and Jean Applonie and Philharmonic conductor Kory Katseanes. But there is more. Students and conductors share a strong belief in the spiritual character of music. As one critic observed, "The spiritual element is present in each piece the choirs sing." This results in performances that are alive, fresh, and heartfelt-performances that overcome boundaries and draw people together. The music presented here was recorded during the live performances of the December 2016 and 2017 Celebration of Christmas concerts.

John Rutter directs the Cambridge Singers, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the award-winning Farnham Youth Choir alongside guest soloists Melanie Marshall, Clara Sanabras and Elin Manahan Thomas, for an unforgettable festival of Christmas music.

REVIEW:

Fans of John Rutter--and particularly of his Christmas music and programs--will certainly rejoice and be merry with the release of this, "the first all-new Christmas recording from John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers for 20 years". Listeners familiar with the Cambridge Singers' half-dozen or so earlier Christmas albums will be especially pleased to find the premieres of five new Rutter works and 10 new arrangements. Opening and (almost) closing the disc are two old favorites: David Willcocks' arrangements of O come all ye faithful and Hark! the herald angels sing--but with newly written fanfares by Rutter, whose annual London Christmas Festival concerts provided the idea and much of the material for this program.

As for Rutter's original pieces--Ave Maria; Rejoice and be merry; Magical Kingdom; New Year; I wish you Christmas--there are no surprises here, just more of the same instinctively tuneful lines, ingratiating, pop-flavored harmonies, and thoughtful treatment of texts that for decades have endeared his music to millions of singers and audiences. Seasoned Rutter listeners will especially savor the composer's trademark rhythmic style and harmonic changes in I wish you Christmas (which he wrote for the 2006 Festival) and New Year (a 2006 commission for Sandringham Church to celebrate the 80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth), for which he also wrote the texts.

Other notable entries are Bob Chilcott's The Shepherd's Carol, written in 2000 for the famed King's College service of Nine Lessons and Carols, and Nigel Hess' Christmas Overture, a tightly woven orchestral medley of traditional Christmas tunes written for the 2007 Festival that skillfully exploits both the full orchestra and the festive characteristics of the carols themselves.

There are several selections for solo voice as well, the most enjoyable of which are performed by Clara Sanabras (Rutter's setting of the Catalan carol El Noi de la Mare) and Melanie Marshall (two other Rutter arrangements, of Jester Hairston's Mary's Boy Child and the Caribbean carol The Virgin Mary had a baby boy).

In addition to the expectedly excellent performances by the Cambridge Singers, we also enjoy contributions by the fine Farnham Youth Choir on several tracks--and the Royal Philharmonic treats Rutter's orchestrations with appropriate style and enthusiasm. There's a big, festive feel to the sound and overall ambience of this production (recorded in London's Cadogan Hall), which absolutely suits the occasion--and Melanie Marshall's closing rendition of Have yourself a merry little Christmas (another Rutter arrangement) brings it all home with a nice personal blessing. A great job, and a welcome early Christmas present!

--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

If you're very comfortable with your favorite Christmas carol choral arrangements, be prepared to adjust your ears and your sensibility as you listen to these newly commissioned--and sometimes very different--settings by Antony Pitts (who also happens to be a composer, radio producer, and the conductor of the vocal ensemble Tonus Peregrinus). Although Pitts strove to honor the original tunes and to preserve certain familiar aspects of carol singing forms and customs, he wasn't afraid to shake tradition with new harmonies and a few unusual melodies. Of course, how many ways can you harmonize "Lo, how a Rose e'er blooming" and still have it recognizable and singable? Pitts chooses not to tinker very much with this beloved hymn, instead substituting a completely different translation ("Lo, there a Rose is blooming") set to very familiar harmony, gradually introducing dissonances and changing the texture, carefully ornamenting the non-melodic lines. Other pieces are more daring--the melismatic inner parts and flatted sevenths in "While shepherds watched", for example, or the stark, open, fourth- and fifth-oriented harmonies in "O come, o come, Emmanuel".


While Pitts shows fertile imagination and often impressive resourcefulness in rethinking these 24 mostly well-known carols and hymns, some of his ideas are better than others, and occasionally we're left thinking that, well, maybe the traditional version really is the best after all. Among the offerings, which are presented in four thematically organized sections: a "Silent Night" that's just too schmaltzy for its own good; a plodding, tedious "O little town of Bethlehem" (to a tune many won't recognize, complete with theatre-organ tremolo!); a wonderfully dancing "Good King Wenceslas" that enlivens this usually routine song; a weirdly chaotic "Hark the herald angels sing"; a beautiful realization of the 15th-century "Alleluya--a new work"; and an unusual "Away in a manger" that features some delicious harmonies that cleverly illustrate the sound of the "lowing" cattle and the baby awaking. However, rather than describe these as I hear them, you should get this and judge for yourself. You may find some of these arrangements will become your new favorites--or at least welcome alternatives to the ubiquitous Willcocks/Rutter/Oxford Carol Book "standards". At the Naxos budget price, it's a great buy and, if you're interested, the arrangements are available online. [11/30/2004]
--David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Classical Music

For almost two thousand years people around the world have been gathering to celebrate the Christmas season. These celebrations are as varied as their countries of origin but share at least two common threads, the birth of Jesus and the desire to celebrate this event in music. Carols such as Silent Night, O Holy Night or Ave Maria are sung throughout the world and need little introduction. Many of the tracks on this disc are less known but great Christmas carols.

The Chenaults are known for commissioning imaginative arrangements of music for two organists. Here they reprise popular Christmas favorites on the Albert Schweitzer Memorial Pipe Organ (built by Ruffatti) in Spivey Hall near Atlanta. Includes "Sleight Ride", "Greensleeves", Carol of the Drum, Gesu Bambino, White Christmas and many others. - Gothic Records

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The two resident choirs of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and their director Edward Wickham, join together to record this stunning and evocative selection of contemporary Christmas carols. The college can boast having the first and only college-based Oxbridge girls' choir, and its own beautiful chapel in the very heart of Cambridge, provided the venue for this debut recording of the recently founded St Catharine's Girls' Choir. Joined by the student choir, the album features premieres from such composers as Richard Rodney Bennett, Roxanna Panufnik, Cecilia McDowall and John Tavener. It also includes works specially written for the Girls' Choir by Stevie Wishart and Christopher Fox.

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Classical Music

Classical Music

Here's an imaginative and effective recital of piano music inspired by Christmas images and all manner of bells. The program's centerpiece is Liszt's Weinachtsbaum cycle, whose 12 movements interweave gentle musical portraits and paraphrases of traditional carols. From the frisky Scherzoso and tangy Ungarisch to the sparsely lyrical O Holy Night and Old Provençal Christmas Song, Roland Pöntinen's rich tone and patrician fingerwork perfectly points up the music's wistful sentiments and contrasting moods. Compare, for instance, Pöntinen's swagger in the Polnisch to Leslie Howard's old gray tread, and you'll almost be fooled into thinking that you're hearing a major Liszt work. Two contrasting movements from Messiaen's Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus are lovingly served up with ravishing color and rock-solid rhythmic poise: I hope Pöntinen will record the entire cycle in due course.


For sheer gorgeousness and harmonic allure, you won't easily resist Reger's Mariä Wiegenlied and Busoni's Nuit de Noël. Funny how these two composers are best known for their prickly upholstered large works, yet not many pianists take on their exquisite miniatures. Stefan Pöntinen, the pianist's brother, composed his three-minute Carillon for this recording. It recalls Messiaen's chordal asymmetry, but with leaner, less sensual sonorities. Two Wilhelm Kempff transcriptions of Bach chorale preludes, In dulci jubilo and Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, provide this program's introduction and coda. If you seek a holiday disc appropriate for any day of the year, look no further.
--Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

The Christmas net is cast wide in this captivating collection of seasonal music. John Fox has crafted a delightful Carol Fantasia. Bryan Kelly’s Scrooge is an action-packed Dickens compression, brought to visceral life by esteemed actor Simon Callow, who also narrates Philip Lane’s Another Night Before Christmas, an update by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy of the classic poem. Lane’s Old Christmas Music is expressively rich, and spans the centuries. Smaller pieces from Liszt, orchestrated by Gordon Jacob, Rebikov and more recent works, complete a delightful selection.

Originally released 20 years ago, and now available again through ArkivMusic, this immensely popular recording reimagines some of the popular songs of Christmas as if they had been written by Mozart or Beethoven or Debussy.

Nothing evokes Christmas like bells – ringing from a church steeple, accompanying a sleigh ride, or adorning evergreens. In this best-selling album, reissued at mid-price just in time for the season, the Christmas spirit is joyfully expressed through beloved carols performed on six-and-a-half octave set of Malmark handbells. The Gloriae Dei Ringers include old favorites in new arrangements, as well as original handbell works.

The Bells of Christmas is a new edition of the bestselling holiday recording, Hear them Ring. Featured are beloved favorites such as Away in a Manger, March of the Kings, and In the Bleak Midwinter arranged by some of today's best known handbell specialists and composers.

Described as "dynamically explosive" by the American Record Guide, the Gloriae Dei Ringers perform a diverse and expanding repertoire of original handbell compositions as well as classical arrangements. The Gloriae Dei Ringers, a sparkling and sonorous performing ensemble of young musicians, have dazzled audiences around the world including the US, Russia, Siberia, Italy, Finland and Switzerland.

"These virtuosi of metal and mallet positively palpitate with imagination and their arrangements are the ne plus ultra of shimmering, quivering pulsating pulchritude. The arrangement by Frances Legge Callahan summoning up twangy sonorities and pedal notes, a delicious range of colors including plucking and martellato effects. There are eleven players in this plucky Massachusetts group directed by Richard K Pugsley... they use 79 Malmark handbells (of 6 1/2 octaves). Twas Christmas Eve receives a rather suggestive reading that ends in Renaissance dignity whilst the witty coloration of The Twelve Days of Christmas is full of pitch extremes and glittering sonorities, like stars exploding. Away in a Manger is saturated in impressionistic ostinato; if you think handbells are inflexible creatures listen to the dynamic variance cultivated by these patrician East Coast ringers. They wouldn't rouse a butterfly's eyelids with the spectral quiescence of their Malmarks. A Flight of Angels is rhythmically novel; the sound of mallet on bell is distinctive as elsewhere the piping of shepherds in Shepherds, Watching is conveyed through simplicity and delicacy. Altogether their ensemble is metaltight, the sonorities they conjure full of lithe and pleasurable novelty."

— Jonathan Woolf, Musicweb-international.com

"The Gloriae Dei Ringers perform with a set of 79 bells covering 6 1/2 octaves. They are based in Massachusetts, but have toured in both eastern and western Europe, including Russia. This disc consists of arrangements of familiar Christmas carols as well as some original compositions for hand-bell choir by composers such as Donald Allured, Dale Jergenson, and Judy Hunnicutt. The performances are virtuosic, considering the teamwork essential to coherent ensemble in this medium. The program displays the wide variety of sounds that can be obtained from the bells through such techniques as plucking, martellato playing, and striking with mallets."

— William Gatens, American Record Guide

"From the Red Kettle Santas to the midnight call from the steeple, bells are a part of Christmas. This recording of Gloriae Dei's 11 musicians with their six-and-a-half-octave handbells goes beyond the usual arrangements of carols to transcriptions weaving dissonances and descants, the very highest and lowest tones, even the use of mallets on the bells to produce an intriguing and beautiful concert. In Twas Christmas Eve,Paul McKlveen pairs Let All Mortal Flesh with God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen. A Flight of Angels is Dale Jergenson's composition specifically for the bells, as is Donald Allured's Bellfest."

— Patricia Nakamura, The Living Church

Earlier, long before pure technical skill, creativity in improvisation was the most important measure for judging the abilities of an organist. Kay Johannsen, Kantor of the Stiftskirche Stuttgart, has a masterful command of this art, which he demonstrates here by means of international Christmas songs from many lands, including German, Great Britain, the USA, Norway, Poland and Bolivia.

Celebrate Christmas with America's oldest arts organisation, the Handel and Haydn Society, as they explore a fascinating and eclectic selection of festive music from traditional carols using American tunes to Christmas motets by Charles Ives and contemporary American composer, James Bassi. Also included are carols by the 'father of American choral music', Bostonian William Billings, and the captivating and instantly-recognisable Carol of the Bells by Mykola Leontovich.

REVIEWS:

There are some surprising and beautiful arrangements on the Boston-based Handel and Haydn Society’s Joy to the World – An American Christmas, conducted by their English artistic director, Harry Christophers. What Christophers has offered is an overview of the most popular carols sung in America (sometimes presenting them alongside their English counterparts), yielding not only the usual fare of Rutter and Howells, as well as a particularly accomplished performance of Morten Lauridsen’s O magnum mysterium, but some new works including Quem pastores laudavere, a wonderfully creative combination of traditional melodies and barbershop ideas by James Bassi.

-- Gramophone

This is not the brash affair that you might expect from the Christmas-card cover; even the pseudo-Handelian Joy to the World receives the most tasteful performance I’ve ever heard. It contains slightly more familiar material than the [comparable offerings from other labels]...there’s some material that isn’t specifically seasonal or familiar and the presence of Harry Christophers at the helm of the Handel and Haydn Society lends it distinction well above the run of the mill. Good recording and the inclusion of the booklet provide added incentives.

-- Brian Wilson

This Christmas collection consists of 19 numbers, many traditional and familiar. Included are two settings of ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’ and three of ‘In Dulci Jubilo’. The superlative musicianship and the almost perfect blending of voices make this one of the best Christmas recordings I’ve heard. If you like “different” arrangements, there are ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ with harmonies slightly altered from the usual. If you prefer the traditional, you can hear perfectly sung renditions of ‘It Came upon the Midnight Clear’, ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’, and ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’. Other high points include gorgeous choral sound in Marten Lauridsen’s ‘O Magnum Mysterium’ and James Bassi’s ‘Quem Pastores Laudavere’.

My favorites come near the middle of the program. Harry Christophers, the director, has included two songs new to me: ‘The Shepherd’s Carol’ by Bob Chilcott and Charles Ives’s simply-titled ‘Christmas Carol’. Both are simple, beautiful texts set to lovely music and scrupulously performed. Just these two selections make this recording worth owning. There is also a fine solo on ‘I Wonder as I Wander’, a beautiful diminuendo to end Herbert Howells’s ‘A Spotless Rose’, and at the end as perfect a ‘Carol of the Bells’ as one is likely to hear.

The excellent booklet includes texts and background information on the music and the performers. An excellent addition to one’s Christmas collection!

-- American Record Guide

When the Handel and Haydn Society sing holiday standards, it’s as though carolers stopped by your house—and happened to be top-ofthe-line professionals. Starting with a single pure voice, an a cappella rendition of “I wonder as I wander,” with pristine tone and impeccable intonation, opens the recording. The singers bring a gentle lilt to various settings of “In dulci jubilo” and blend seamlessly in a reverent “O magnum mysterium,” drawing attention to its arresting harmonic shifts. The ensemble also performs an exuberant “Joy to the World,” with florid accompanimental lines and calland-response sections buffeting the familiar melody, as well as a “Carol of the Bells” that highlights the vocalists’ pinpoint precision.

-- NJ.com

A CHRISTMAS FESTIVAL is that rarity when it comes to holiday music: an album driven by more than the common theme of the music. While it does feature a host of seasonal favorites, the show stars remarkable performances, making it a joy any time of year.
The album has been digitally remastered from original recordings made in the late 1960s. The first half of the album features the organ of St. Michael's Church in New York City, played by E. Power Biggs. The majesty of the room can be felt in both the rich organ tones as well as in the chorus' delivery. The second half of the album features the vocals of soprano Phyllis Curtin. In contrast to the all-male vocals of the St. Michael's performances, Curtin gives the album a refreshing female presence. Even when singing with full orchestra, her voice gives intimacy to the music.

4 Girls 4 Harps At Christmas

Classical Music

Classical Music

CHRISTMAS MUSIC FOR BRASS AND ORGAN: Great Joy, Vol. 2