Composer: Traditional
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Fiedler's Favorite Marches / Boston Pops Orchestra
Sing We Noël - Traditional Carols From St. John's Cathedral
2. What Child is This?
3. Ding Dong Merrily on High
4. Sing we to this merry company
5. The Sussex Mummers' Christmas Carol (arr. M. Allen)
6. The Little Road to Bethlehem
7. The Holly and the Ivy (arr. J. Rutter): The holy and the ivy
8. Carol of the Bells (arr. P. Wilhousky)
9. God rest you merry, gentlemen
10. The First Nowell
11. The Carol of the Angels
12. I saw three ships
13. Come, love we God
14. Torches, Op. 7a
15. Wexford Carol
16. Angels we have heard on high
17. Away in a manger (arr. J. Van)
18. Good King Wenceslas
19. Sussex Carol
20. A Merry Christmas
21. O Holy Night (Cantique de Noel) (arr. J. Rutter)
22. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
Down Came An Angel - Music for Christmas / Jacqueline Schwab
Best known for her solo piano soundtracks to Ken Burns's PBS documentaries, Schwab has a quaint, inviting touch on the keyboard and a wonderful appreciation of Appalachian musical tradition. The result is a warm, familiar Christmas sound filled with nostalgia. Schwab's piano shimmers with a delightful tone, like a parlor with a fireplace on a snowy day.
Though the album is entirely instrumental, the traditional hymns, carols, and spirituals were meant to be sung. To that end, the producers have included lyric sheets, giving families the opportunity to gather around the piano once again to experience a Christmas tradition.
The Mystery Of Christmas / Edison, Elora Festival Singers
Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: Elora Festival Singers. Conductor: Noel Edison. Soloist: Michael Bloss.
Bright Day Star / Baltimore Consort
One of the finest Christmas recordings ever made, this 1994 production by the Baltimore Consort makes a welcome return (complete with a new cover) along with the revival of the Dorian label. Glowing with the high, clear soprano of Custer LaRue and brimming with versatile, virtuoso instrumental work by Mary Anne Ballard (viols, rebec), Mark Cudek (cittern, Baroque guitar, viols, bandora), Larry Lipkis (viol, recorder, gemshorn), Ronn McFarlane (lute), Chris Norman (wooden flutes, pennywhistle), and Webb Wiggins (organ), this program literally lives up to the promise of its title.
Many of these 20 tunes/carols/dances are among the most familiar Christmas standards--Ding dong merrily on high; Greensleeves; Es ist ein' Ros' entsprungen; In dulci jubilo; The Cherry Tree Carol; Tomorrow shall be my dancing day--presented in both vocal/instrumental and strictly instrumental arrangements. But whatever the tune, and however it's presented, the result is invariably engaging, artful, classy, and infinitely repeatable, which means it's perfect for multiple repetitions, whether at Christmas or any other time of year. Chris Norman's flute improvisation on "Es ist ein' Ros' entsprungen" is a classic, and Custer LaRue's rendition of the beautiful "Rorate coeli desuper" is not to be missed. In fact, that last instruction applies to this entire disc. If you're a Christmas music fan (and who isn't?) and you don't already own this CD, you know what you have to do.
-- David Vernier, ClassicsToday.com
Star Of Wonder

Festive music for the holiday season performed by an outstanding mixed chorus with pipe organ, harp, flute and bellringers! Recorded in the glorious cathedral acoustics of Saint Ignatius Church, San Francisco. "...Magical...the sound is impressively transparent." --Fanfare
I'll Be Home For The Holidays / Eaken Piano Trio
Grainger: The Complete Piano Music / Martin Jones
2011 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Percy Grainger’s death and the event has witnessed the reissue of a number of important recordings. This isn’t one such, because it’s remained in the Nimbus catalogue throughout, but I did want to draw brief attention to this super-abundant, characterful, and wholly marvellous five CD set of the complete piano music, played by the indefatigable, stylistically apt Martin Jones. He’s one of the undersung masters of a variety of repertoire – as good in Iberian music as he is in British, I’d suggest.
Here his encyclopaedic survey acts as a modern day cornerstone. You should hear his recordings, if you are excited by Grainger, and compare and contrast them with the composer’s own recordings which fortunately – all the 78s at any rate – have recently been reissued in a five CD set by APR [7501]. The experience is both exciting and diverting. But Grainger only recorded (and re-recorded) a fraction of his own pieces, whereas Jones has collared the lot. And how!
The first disc starts with some classic Grainger; the brio, clarity and speed of Jones’s take on Handel in the Strand is a tonic whilst To a Nordic Princess rises to a passionate pitch of assertion. In a Nutshell is a suite the charms of which seldom pall, and in this performance Jones crafts an unusually expressive Pastoral, slow and spare then incrementally building up in sonority, power and speed. The playful and vibrant badinage of The Immovable Do is especially well realised – one of the very best moments in this opening disc - though the reflective and beautiful Colonial Song runs it, very differently, close. Those who have never come across the roistering cakewalk of In Dahomey are in for a treat.
The second disc is given over to arrangements. To a degree it’s of less pressing interest to the Grainger novice, but it’s essential ground for those who want to understand his enthusiasms and the musical means by which he conveyed them. The opening of the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto makes some fearsome demands on the intrepid solo pianist whereas the Brahms Cradle song that cannily follows it is delightfully spun – lissom legato, not lion-hearted virtuosity. His arrangement of Nimrod is probably quite well known but that of Rachmaninoff – the finale of the Second Concerto – probably less so. I must admit that the Dowland transcription, of Now, O now, I needs must part, is absolutely irresistible in Jones’s performance. He really does have the touch for refinement in these works. Of the other works, it’s interesting to contrast Grainger’s own 1929 78 of the Rosenkavalier with Jones’s. Then there’s the convoluted tribute to Stephen Foster, the well-known Bach Blithe Bells and the same composer’s Fugue in A minor – it reminds one of Bach’s importance to Grainger, as performer and composer.
The third disc offers 28 examples of Graingeresque delight. Some are very concise folk-songs and traditional songs, others better known examples of his art. Let me just suggest a few which I think especially illuminating or unusual. If you’ve not come across The Merry King, try to do so, and you won’t regret it; it’s hauntingly beautiful. A Jutish Melody was recorded by Grainger in one of his very rarest 78s – a double-sided 1929 Columbia. He takes it a touch faster than Jones. Spoon River is played with vibrancy but Jones is ever alert as to treble colouration. There are also the simple and complex versions of One more day my John.
The fourth disc is a curious collection but that only makes it the more valuable for completists. We have Stanford’s Four Irish Dances, the deeply sensitive Fauré songs – what a shame Grainger didn’t record them – and the opening movement transcription of the Schumann Piano Concerto, which, like the Rachmaninoff, is probably best known by close readers of Grainger’s work in this field – a virtuosic single-voiced domestication, as it were, of the concerto literature. Another such is the better remembered Grieg Concerto first movement, also in this disc. His homage to Delius comes via the Air and Dance – but there are plenty of things to occupy the eager ears in this disc. Uppermost amongst them we find Angelus ad Virginem, a lovely carol, and then some of Grainger’s early works. These include the Schumannesque Klavierstücke in E, and the other early pieces which are variously awkward and Brahmsian or, in the case of the one in B flat, incomplete. There’s also the one in D, which Grainger dedicated to his father. The Bigelow March, an insouciant piece, was actually written by Ella Grainger, Percy’s wife.
The final disc has bigger works, ending with The Warriors. It also includes those pieces written for four hands on one piano, four on two pianos, six on one piano and six on two pianos. Children's March: "Over the Hills and Far Away" is a sonorous and ebullient example of Martin Jones and Richard McMahon playing on two pianos. But all these pieces are richly exciting and attractive. In the midst of all this don’t overlook the calm solo Grainger fashioned from William Byrd – The Carman’s Whistle or indeed Gershwin’s Embraceable You. The resilience of the performers and the clarity of the six-handed, two-piano, arrangement of The Warriors elevates it to a must-hear experience.
I hope this has given some indication of why this is so essential a box for admirers of the composer. I appreciate that Nimbus’s sound in these 1989-91 recordings is not to everyone’s tastes, but it will certainly do, and the booklet notes are classy. What a splendid undertaking this was.
-- Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International
Dinner Classics - Romance
This CD contains both analogue and digital recordings.
Swedish Christmas Music - Dagen Är Kommen / Göteborg Gosskör
1. Dagen är kommen 04:36
2. När juldagsmorgon glimmar 02:43
3. Det är en ros utsprungen 02:24
4. Betlehems stjärna (Gläns över sjö och strand) 03:17
5. Ding, dong, merrily on high 01:53
6. Nu tändas tusen juleljus 02:32
7. Stilla natt 02:44
8. Gladelig vi sjunge dig 01:49
9. Förunderligt och märkligt 02:27
10. Vid Betlehem 04:59
11. Tre kungar 02:40
12. Härlig är jorden 02:51
13. O helga natt (Adams julsång) 04:19
14. I saw three ships 02:11
15. Jungfru Maria 02:43
16. Och det hände vid den tiden 03:03
17. Jul, jul, strålande jul 02:37
18. Ave Maria 05:51
19. Tomorrow shall be my dancing day 02:41
20. Lyss till änglasångens ord 03:03
Music For Harp - Middle Ages To The 20th Century
-- Gramophone [6/1979, reviewing an LP release of the Spohr]
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The chromatic harp is an idiosyncratic and, outside certain simple formulae, difficult instrument to write for; it has also been hard for it to escape from its 'romantic' image. Think of the harp, think of arpeggios (isn't that what the word signifies?), and those traversed with a sweep of the hand are inevitably colourful because you can't do it with a simple triad. Harp concertos have never been numerous and, other than Mozart and Handel, have come and gone like recorded ships in the night. Glière's has survived but Zabaleta's account of Reinecke's has long gone (DG 138 853, 11/63). Hard to realize the Glihre was written as late as 1939 —broad but fairly commonplace tunes, ultraconservative structure and language, arpeggios galore are its lot, music to relax and dream to. Michel is a fine harpist and her Glibre fully matches Ellis's older and less crisply recorded version on Decca, but neither can transmute the music's pewter to gold. The Reinecke is a more demonstrative and developed work, not written 'Out of its time', exploiting the resources of the harp in both solo and subsidiary roles, the flanking movements with cyclic connections.
The slow movement is exceptionally beautiful, the opening theme given by harp and trombone in hushed unison, and later, in ethereal harmonies on the harp with quiet responses from the strings. Michel presses a little ahead of her colleagues at times (notably the unisoni trombone) but generally benefits from skilful orchestration, sensitive support and well balanced recording. Written for a 'commoner' instrument the Reinecke might have become an oft-heard standard in the repertoire- it may still find favour with anyone following my advice to buy this recording.
-- Gramophone [4/1980, reviewing the LP release of the Gliere and Reinecke concertos]
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The novelty for me—and I daresay it may be for others too—was Roussel's Serenade of 1925, refreshing music that while keeping well clear of profundities, is yet most elegantly fashioned, urbane and full of wry charm. Here you will find the Melos Ensemble more smiling and certainly more kaleidescopic in colour. The Turnabout team are a bit more serious about the musical argument, a bit less bemused by effects of tone colouring. The flautist, Wilhelm Schwegler, also unfortunately has to breathe, whereas Richard Adeney's instrument (I presume it is Adeney) miraculously seems to play itself without audible intakes of air. It is Adeney's tonal bloom, his wider range of dynamics and colour and more malleable phrasing that in the first place succeeds in making Debussy's sonata sound more beguiling than the cheaper version, and especially in the opening Pastorale—considered by many critics no less seductive than the famous L'apres-midi. In this movement the Turnabout team do not react subtly and sensitively enough to detail, whereas the Melos are constantly reading between the lines and yielding rhythmically to this and that. But perhaps you could argue that the graver pulse chosen by the Germans for the Minuetto emphasizes its archaic, hieratic quality. I also thought they manage to define individual notes a bit more precisely in the finale than the Melos, who are sometimes a bit too impressionistic in their fluidity for this movement, where Debussy, "Musicien Francais", is very definitely looking back to seventeenth-and eighteenthcentury French classicism.
The performance I enjoyed most was the old, familiar Ravel from the Endres Quartet with Helga Storck, Konrad Hampe and Gerd Starke. The music, of course, is much less equivocal than the Debussy, and these players respond to its sensuous languor and tingling darts with more immediacy than I detected anywhere else on this record.
-- Joan Chissell, Gramophone [2/1969, reviewing the LP release of the Debussy, Ravel, and Roussel works]
Britten: A Ceremony Of Carols & Friday Afternoon / Corp, New London Children's Choir
Christmas Celebration / United States Army Field Band & Soldiers' Chorus
Alleluia - An American Hymnal / Bruffy, Kansas City Chorale
Song of the Volga Boatmen / Smirnov, Slavyanka
'Slavyanka' is a San Francisco-based, a cappella male chorus whose members are mostly non-Russian speakers. Apparently there is an authentic Russian heritage in San Francisco, as the group takes its name from the name given by early 19th-century Russian colonists to the river near their settlement, just north of the San Francisco Bay area. Slavayanka and their director, Gregory Smirnov, have selected a program of late 18th-20th century folksongs for this recording.
Slavyanka brings gusto and energy to their interpretations of these songs, some of which might be familiar to most listeners. The famous "Song of the Volga Boatmen" receives a darkly beautiful performance that is rich with atmosphere and highlighted by a solo from bass Bob Raber. The group is also solid in less familiar songs, notably "Birch Switches," a tune that is driven by animated rhythms and tricky counterpoint. Best of all is "Come Savior, Today," a hymn that mixes Byzantine chant and multi-tone singing to the accompaniment of a Tibetan bell--it's haunting music.
Millenium - Russian Choral Music / J Reilly Lewis
Includes work(s) by Baldassare Galuppi, Alexander Arkhangelsky, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dimitri Bortniansky, Alexander Gretchaninov, Pavel Chesnokov, Alexander Nikolsky. Ensemble: National Cathedral Choral Society Washington, D.C.. Conductor: J. Reilly Lewis.
Merry Christmas / Chicago Brass Quintet
Grand Piano - Percy Grainger Plays Grainger
Percy Grainger recorded these selections on Aeolian "Duo Art" piano rolls between 1915-1929, and they are reproduced on a modern piano. Gerald C. Stonehill supplied the piano rolls used for this disc.
Early Music - Sephardic Romances / Wimmer, Ensemble Accentus
Christmas Carols / Donald Hunt, Worcester Cathedral Choir
This Is Christmas! / United States Air Force Symphony Orchestra
Includes work(s) by various composers. Ensemble: United States Army Air Force Symphony Orchestra.
The Art of the Bawdy Song / Baltimore Consort
Make A Joyful Noise / Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Lullaby Journey / Larue, Norman, Robertson
Greensleeves - English Lute Songs & Solos / Baird, Mcfarlane
Includes galliard(s) by Anthony Holborne. Soloist: Ronn McFarlane.
Faire Is The Heaven - Music Of The English Church / Rutter
This recording is dedicated to unaccompanied English church music, sung in the beautiful acoustic of the Lady Chapel of Ely Cathedral. The 23 motets and anthems are drawn from three key periods: the Reformation, in the sixteenth century; the Restoration, in the later seventeenth century; and the Anglican revival, in the mid-nineteenth century. "An individual record of exceptional warmth and delight." -- Gramophone
Shenandoah - An American Chorister 1890-1990 / Rutenberg
Prima Voce - The Spirit Of Christmas Past
Includes a star was his candle. Soloists: Lawrence Tibbett, Stewart Wille.
Prima Voce - Marcella Sembrich
Prima Voce - Chaliapin
Includes work(s) by various composers. Soloist: Feodor Chaliapin.
