In the Revelation of James, an apocryphal gospel that was not included in the Bible, events and details surrounding the birth of Christ are reported that do not appear in the better-known versions of the Christmas story from the gospels of Matthew and Luke. The Christmas story is presented by James in a vivid, dramatic, and almost theatrical manner.

Howard Arman's Christmas Story follows the tradition of works such as Bach's "Christmas Oratorio", where newly-composed settings of the Gospel alternate with chorales. Here, Gregorian and polyphonic chorales as well as several motets from the 17th century are woven into Arman's composition and form a second narrative level. They frame the episodes of the Christmas story and can also be understood as musical reactions to the narrated events.

This new BR-KLASSIK CD is complemented by the chorales from Peter Maxwell Davies' Christmas cantata "O magnum mysterium". Arman contrasts the powerful language and mysticism of James’ gospel by reducing musical means to their essentials: monophonic singing, syllabically conceived solo passages and, as the only accompanying instrument, a hurdy-gurdy, which with its monotonous, archaic sound represents a certain timelessness. All of this results in maximum text comprehensibility, whereby the emotional declamatory singing style almost makes the figures resemble characters in a stage play. A key moment is Joseph's vision shortly before the birth of Christ: time seems to stand still, and the mystical and sublime aspect of this scene is intensified by poetic words full of linguistic contrasts and contradictions. – The chorales and motets integrated into Arman’s Christmas Story gradually develop ever greater polyphony. Thus, three settings by Nicolaus Zangius, Hieronymus Praetorius and Hans Leo Hassler, scored for ever greater numbers of voices, lead to a fourth, ten-part composition by Melchior Vulpius, which concludes with the words "Peace on earth". In its formal layout, Arman's Christmas Story bears similarities to Peter Maxwell Davies' cantata "O magnum mysterium". This work, written in 1960 for the choirmaster of Manchester Cathedral, also consists of chorales and instrumental sonatas, although the order is not compulsory. The four a cappella chorales in particular constitute a self-contained unit in terms of both content and music.

One of Britain’s most popular contemporary composers; Patrick Hawes; has teamed up with the excel- lent Voce Chamber Choir of Connecticut to create an album of twenty brand-new Christmas choral works. Specially written for the choir; the first collection and album title; sets words by Patrick’s poet brother Andrew. The Nativity; for unaccompanied choir; moves through the Christmas nativity scene exploring the drama of this momentous moment in human history. For the second collection; Patrick has set Four Christmas Motets; the fragile ancient poetry giving rise to tender and heartfelt music for unaccompanied choir. The album goes on to explore the Christmas story through various texts; old and new; in works that are set to become extremely popular with choirs around the world. Of the new album Patrick says “Christmas is my absolute favourite time of year and it has been a joy to set such inspiring and dramatic words to music. The variety of texts - from ancient to modern – are all so relevant for today because they speak of eternal truths and the mystery of the Christmas story. I am thrilled with how Voce and their director Mark Singleton have brought a freshness of approach and musical excellence to their interpretation of this exciting project.”

The artists write: “Christmas in 2020 was very still, with corona lockdown and a ban on singing. After that sobering experience, we had the idea to arrange traditional Christmas carols for two cellos. We are always surprised to discover that the earliest ones move our emotions because of their purity, their sheer energy, and their touches of elevated spirituality. Sounding like the human voice, the cello’s sonority creates a space for our individual emotions. It lets us encounter these time-honored songs that are sung in the family or at church, often under difficult circumstances when humanity is under threat.

"Vincent Themba’s congenial, well-suited, inspiring accompaniments on guitar, djembe, and double bass support and enrich our arrangements. While we were preparing this album, we realized that we were actually prolonging the legacy and work of our two respective fathers, Joseph Alfred Schlichtig and Hans Heinemann. When we were young, it was they who made it possible for us all to play Christmas music at church and in our families at home. We remember them with utter gratitude.”

A compilation of the most beautiful winter - and Christmas poems by Eduard Mörike, Joseph von Eichendorff, Theodor Fontane, Wilhelm Busch and others. This release with the wonderful texts and atmospheric zither music for Christmas, is certainly suitable to meet our hectic and often stressful Christmas season with a moment of peace and contemplation. As much as one perceives the zither mainly in folk music, one is even more surprised by the manifold possibilities of this instrument, which can be heard on the present recording. In its fine and atmospheric sound, the zither interweaves with the lyrics in an almost ideal way.

Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868) was the most significant Italian composer of the first half of the nineteenth century. Born to working musicians – his father was a horn player, his mother an opera singer – his operas, both comic and serious, conquered Maples, Italy and later the rest of the world. His style is sensuous, brilliant and rhythmically vital, a constant source of delight and excitement. Rossini was just twelve years old when during the summer holidays, spent in 1804 at the Conventello in Ravenna estate in the home of the Triossi family, he composed the “Sei sonate a quattro”. Rossini had been invited by the young Agostino Triossi, a self-taught double bass player, who had asked him to write chamber music for him and for his cousins Luigi and Giovanni Morini, who used to play the violin and the cello, respectively. After their composition, the tradition of performing them frequently in transcription for string ensembles has established itself, although the performance, according to the original text, (certainly better), highlights the lively dialogue among the instruments. The present recording is played in the original form by four string players, Francesco Manara , Daniele Pascoletti , Massimo Polidori and Francesco Siragusa , in the best Italian tradition of instrumental Belcanto.

Soprano Theresa Nelles and cathedral organist Winfried Bönig invite us to an atmospheric Christmas Eve in Cologne Cathedral and present a varied programme of Romantic works from various countries: music for the feast that goes straight to the heart. The great acoustics of Cologne Cathedral have been deliberately captured on this audiophile SACD. Born in Cologne, Theresa Nelles has had close ties with Cologne Cathedral since childhood, not only emotionally but also musically. During her 10 years of choir membership in the girls' choir at Cologne Cathedral, she already received her first solo tasks, was also the singer of a jazz band of the so called Cathedral-music for a long time and, after her High school graduation, studied singing at the Cologne Academy of Music with Prof. Mechthild Georg and in Rome at the Conservatorio Santa Cecilia. Engagements take the singer to festivals at home and abroad, such as the Festival Internazionale di Musica e Arte Sacra in Italy, Switzerland, South Tyrol, Russia, the International Handel Festival in Göttingen, the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Brühl Castle Concerts, to opera houses such as Krefeld/ Mönchengladbach, Koblenz, Gelsenkirchen, the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, the Cologne and Essen Philharmonics and, last but not least, regularly to large churches, always particularly fond of the local cathedral.

For years, Peter Kopp and his Vocal Concert Dresden have been making a name for themselves through the discographic release of highly interesting and hitherto little-noticed compilations and programs. After works of the Dresden court music or Venetian treasures, it was most recently Masonic music of the 18th century. Now music of the Moravian Church, the Herrnhuter Brüdergemeine. Its historical significance and international appeal, which literally radiates from a tranquil village in Upper Lusatia into the entire world, will not only celebrate its 300th anniversary next year, but will also be named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Through the brothers' emigration and mission to North America, they left behind a fascinating musical treasure there that is considered one of the cornerstones of North American musical history. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, one could encounter high-quality music from Europe in the settlements of the Brethren, there called "Moravians." The Moravians thus became a musical bridge between Europe and the New World. What is remarkable about this connection is that compositions written in faraway places were also brought back to Germany and again included in the repertoire here. This may have been an absolutely unique feature of the Herrnhuter in the 18th century. Notwithstanding its high repertoire value, this production presents festive Christmas music. It will appeal to the lover of baroque Christmas music as well as to the listener who wishes to broaden his or her musical spectrum.

Felix Klieser, on his new album Beyond Words, focuses on the language of music, the stories that it tells all without any words at all. He places the emphasis on the images that arise before our mind's eye when listening to the music, on the emotions triggered by the music. For Beyond Words the hornist has chosen various arias by Bach, Vivaldi, Handel and Gluck, each of which describes the various, self-contained musical worlds they encompass in a very individual manner. What is really important for his album however is not virtuosity, but tonal expression, according to Felix Klieser: 'It needs to be easy to put into action. The songfulness and the expressive range of sound should always be at the heart, always be the focus.' Listeners are being told a story that is open to any interpretation at all, and this allows them to immerse themselves in a purely musical world.

The output of Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) is so vast and various that only scholars and fellow organists can expect to grasp its scale. Most listeners require a discerning ear to pull out some of the many highlights. The Italian organist Alessandro Perin has done so here, without confining himself to Dupré’s ‘greatest hits’, the characteristic pile-ups of chorale harmonies and torrents of semiquavers in toccatas and variations that find their natural home on the instruments of Cavaille-Coll as an apotheosis of the French Gothic organ style. Instead, Perin’s selection is more diverse. It begins with the Suite Op.39: four pieces originally written as part of a collection of 12 Studies, though they bear no trace of didacticism. Rather, there is a Lisztian quality of invention to their virtuosity, from the glittering cascades of the opening Allegro agitato to the driving counterpoint of the finale. The four settings of the Ave maris stella chant are progressively more ornate, from a simple statement of the chant over a walking bass, through an intricate Bachian chorale prelude, to a final, brilliant toccata. The ‘old Christmas carol’ featured in Op.20 variations is known in English as Now the green blade riseth: in one of his most justly celebrated works, Dupré treats the theme to a dazzling array of transformations, stretching the organist’s technique to the limit. At the height of the Second World War, Dupré composed the Evocation in memory of his father, and gave its first performance at the Cathedral in Rouen in 1941. Exactly what is being evoked is left to the listener to decide, though only the tender second-movement elegy casts its gaze back with fondness; the strident progress of the first movement seems to reflect the troubled times, and the finale has its own struggles to overcome in a final blaze of C major triumph.

The last stop on a long journey, here is the third and final installment of a warmly received Langgaard cycle undertaken by violinist Gunvor Sihm and pianist Berit Johansen Tange. The present volume includes the violin sonatas Nos. 2 and 3 - highly accomplished works with strong individual features - and two single-movement pieces composed by Langgaard the precocious teenager: the charming Aubade written on a summer holiday with his parents, and the dark-colored Night Watchman's Song. Gunvor Sihm trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, from where she graduated in 2014 under Professor Serguei Azizian. Before that Gunvor studied 2 years at San Francisco Conservatory of Music with Ian Swensen. Gunvor Sihm has won several prizes, among others the prestigious Van Hauen's Music Prize 2011, the Eigil Harby Foundation's scholarship in 2015 and Gladsaxe Music Prize 2018. From 2011-15 Gunvor played in the 1st violins of Copenhagen Phil, until she won the position as 2nd Concertmaster for the 2nd violins of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Gunvor was a soloist with among others Odense Symphony Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Tivoli Copenhagen Phil, Danish National Chamber Orchestra and, on several occasions, Copenhagen Phil. With Nightingale String Quartet Gunvor Sihm has recorded the complete string quartets by Rued Langgaard for Dacapo.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed and slowed down social life in large parts of the world in 2020. Musicians are of course particularly affected by this as all of their performances have been cancelled for safety reasons. The SCHOLA HEIDELBERG has used this "free space" to gather the best singers of the region and to record choral movements of the Renaissance at Advent and Christmas with due safety distance. The philosopher Enno Rudolph has written texts about the time of crisis in which these choral movements were written, whichread in German by Bodo Primusrun through and explain the program. A part of the proceeds of this CD will be donated to the musician's relief fund in Corona times of KlangForum Heidelberg.

A Classic Christmas featuring Michael Barry and Friends, remixed and remastered, to be released on November 6, 2020. 12 tracks of Christmas favorites in classical arrangements for guitar, recorder, cello, violin and flute. Also a bonus track, Nat King Coles Christmas Song, performed by the Nat King Cole Generation Hope Summer Strings. 10% of proceeds to be donated to Nat King Cole Generation Hope to support its mission to provide music education to children with the greatest need and fewest resources. Michael Barry is a Grammy award-winning guitarist, composer and producer living, working and making music in New York City. He has performed extensively in the United States, as well as Canada, South America and Europe. A former music instructor and Executive Director of the American Institute of Guitar, he continues to explore music as a universal language and a means of bridging the gap between people of different cultures and backgrounds.

Staszek Plewniak writes: "When I think of Christmas time, I think of the two very special days spent with my family before Christmas Eve each year: sneaking around the kitchen full of dishes prepared for the Christmas Eve table; cleaning the house, and enjoying it; building the fire in the fireplace; and the most exciting of all, decorating the Christmas tree. We like to do all these things while listening to Christmas songs. In the company of these songs Christmas is a truly blissful atmosphere of real joy, overwhelming us, and glowing with magic. This is the time when we only venture out into the winter landscape to go sledding or to make a snowman with the children, and then hurry back home to drink hot chocolate and watch Christmas movies. I associate these days with the songs that I love to listen to on the radio, and which have long been my Christmas musical dream. For ten years the dream has been of recording this album with Stan and Natalia, and each year under the Christmas tree we also wished each other to accomplish a musical project together. For me releasing this album is the fulfillment of a cherished dream, and today the realization of this ambition leaves me floating a few meters above the earth."

There is hardly a more perfect musical formula for the beginning of the Christmas season than the festively recited opening motif of Johann Sebastian Bach's Christmas Oratorio. But in his six cantatas, assigned to the individual holidays, the great Thomaskantor goes far beyond pure jubilation. Rainer Johannes Homburg and his Stuttgart Hymnus-Chorknaben have now given a new version of the "musical message" about the birth of Christ, supported by competent soloists and Handel's Company, whose baroque opulence is particularly well expressed in the three-dimensional sound of this album. Timpani and trumpets mark the royal prelude. The multi-award-winning trumpet ensemble Wolfgang Bauer provides a magnificent sound before the extremely agile evangelist Andreas Post takes us into the events of the Holy Night. The fact that the birth of the Savior is not only important for crowned heads, but also for ordinary people is expressed in a particularly touching way by Bach's enchanting Pastoral Symphony in the second cantata. And then there's the matter of death and resurrection. That this is already laid out in the manger is shown by Bach with a trick that gives every sensitive listener goose bumps: Paul Gerhard's Advent chorale "Wie soll ich dich empfangen", actually to sing to a melody by Johann Crüger, sounds in Hans Leo Hassler's manner of "O Haupt, voll Blut und Wunden", which is also used in the St. Matthew Passion. In the Christmas Oratorio, Bach explored the Protestant equivalence of sermon and church music to a rarely reached depth, each cantata reaches its own proclamation and has its own individual instrumentation. In the Stuttgart Hymnus Choir Boys' Choir, this confession of deeply penetrated piety is in the best throats. Historically informed and accompanied by instruments from the time of its origin, the masterly boys' choir develops a Christmas-intimate mood that one cannot escape.

The German-born Christian Friedrich Ruppe (1753-1826) made his career in the Dutch city of Leiden, where he had originally arrived in 1773 as a student of mathematics and literature. In 1784 he married Christina Chalon (1748-1808), the daughter of the lead violinist the of the Nederlands Theater in Amsterdam. In 1890 he was appointed as music director of the city’s renowned and ancient university, and from 1802 he taught theory of music there, having in 1788 become organist of the city’s principal Lutheran Church. In 1796 an orphanage choir was founded in Leiden on Ruppe’s initiative, consisting of girls and boys from the Holy Spirit or Poor Orphanage and Children's Home near the church. During the following church year he then composed a pair of cantatas on anonymous Dutch texts, designed for the orphanage choir. Despite their musical richness and evident beauties, the scores remained in the archives of the orphanage, only to be rediscovered in 1987. Two centuries after their first performance, they received the recordings reissued here by an accomplished team of experienced Dutch early-music performers. While comparing the cantatas to the music written by Handel for the Foundling Hospital would not flatter Ruppe, his music nonetheless exhibits many charms of its own: unfailingly graceful phrasing, for one, fresh melodic charm and sympathetic writing for voices. There appears to be a clear Haydnesque imprint to both works, but operatic models are more evident in the sinfonia that opens the Christmas Cantata as well as the style of the dramatic recitatives which move along each development of the familiar story. The work concludes with a trumpet-and-drum chorus in the style of oratorios such as Messiah and The Creation, rising to the grand harmonization of an Easter chorale designed for singing by the choir and entire congregation.