Compiled by Ray Rojas. Updated January 28, 2023.
Advent Live Vol. 2, Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge, Nethsinga
This splendid live recording, from within the Chapel of St. John’s College itself, features Christmas favourites including Britten’s "Deo Gracias" from A Ceremony of Carols, as well as gorgeous performances of lesser known works by modern composers including Jonathan Dove, Arvo Pärt and Paul Manz.
A Ceremony of Carols, Choir of Queen's College, Oxford, Owen Rees
A glorious collection of Christmas music spanning over 900 years, centered around Britten's A Ceremony of Carols a work seen as both a signal of Britten's turn back towards English musical and cultural traditions and as a distinctly modern composition.
Owen Rees and the Choir of The Queen's College, Oxford present this alongside works that alternate between the early 17th century by that most prolific composer and arranger of Lutheran Christmas music, Michael Praetorius and the present: music by Judith Weir (1984), David Blackwell (2011), Jonathan Dove (2000), Dobrinka Tabakova (2018), Toby Young (2017), and Cecilia McDowall (2007).
At one point we interrupt the pattern of alternation to look back half a millennium further than Praetorius, with Hildegard of Bingen's "O virga ac diadema." An undoubted jewel in Britain's choral scene (BBC Music Magazine), the Choir of The Queens College Oxford is among the finest and most active university choirs in the UK.
Previous releases with Signum A New Heaven (2017) and The House of the Mind (2018) both went straight to no. 1 in the Specialist Classical Chart in their first week of release.
- Label : Signum Uk
A Century Of Carols: Live Album, Skylark Vocal Ensemble
Alpha & Omega, Gustav Holst Christmas Music, Godwine Choir
This delightful and joyful disc presents all of Gustav Holst's Christmas music on a single disc for the first time, including the world première recordings of a couple of carols.
The Christmas music ranges from much-loved examples such as "In the Bleak Midwinter" and "Personent Hodie" through to the substantial 'Christmas Day'.
The carols are complemented by organ music by Holst - the "Four Voluntaries," as well as an arrangement for organ of the 'Scherzo', written as part of the composer's unfinished second Symphony.
Label : Em Records
Alpha & O: Music for Advent & Christmas, The Choir of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, Edward Wickham
The two choirs of St Catharine's College, Cambridge return to Resonus Classics to collaborate once more on a new recording of contemporary works for Advent and Christmas.
Featuring many world premiere recordings, the programme includes works written specially for the two college choirs including Diana Burrells exuberant carol, "Green groweth the holly"; Christopher Foxs major new setting of the "O Anitphons," interspersed with the original plainchant, and Jeremy Thurlow's "Magnificat" for upper voices, organ and tape, that blazes with the intensity of a new vision of the world.
A Tudor Christmas, Trinity Boys Choir and L'Armonia Sonora
This recording presents music for Advent and Christmas from the Tudor and early Stuart periods but does not attempt to be a historical recreation, more an invitation to imagine the sound world of a period rich in musical expression.
Pragmatism governed many musical practices of the time, either by the frequent re-working of musical scores or through the flexible use of voices and instruments, and this programme wholly embraces this virtue by employing varied accompaniments and by freely changing between instrumental and choral renditions.
In 2018 the eight young voices of Trinity Boys Choir EIGHT and the viol consort L’Armonia Sonora performed much of this music in a Christmas concert in the Tudor Chapel at Ightham Mote in Kent and this environment seemed entirely fitting. The musicians and chamber organ were arranged comfortably on the altar side of the rood screen while the audience sat snugly in the small pews. The resulting intimacy allowed the voices and instruments to speak naturally, sensitively and directly.
Rondeau Records
Ave Rex Angelurum, Choir of Keble College, Oxford, Mathew Martin; Jeremy Filsel and Benjamin Mills, organ
In this unique sequence of music for the Christmas season, the choir of Keble College presents a captivating selection of twenty- and twenty-first century choral music, arrangements and well-known carols. The programme, which features several world premiere recordings, reflects the present tradition of grand liturgy at Keble with inflections of plainchant and kaleidoscopic organ accompaniment. The disc was recorded in the great Benedictine monastery of Buckfast Abbey, showcasing its stunning acoustic and magnificent Ruffatti organ. The Choir of Keble College, Oxford is one of the city’s most distinctive mixed-voice ensembles and comprises around eighteen choral scholars, some volunteers, plus up to three lay clerks. The choir regularly broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.
A Winter's Night: Christmas Music for Choir, Brass Quintet & Organ, Winchester College Chapel Choir, Onyx Brass, Benjamin Cunning ham and Howard Ionascu
Be Merry, Choral Scholars of University College Dublin, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Esmond Earley
The Choral Scholars is an internationally acclaimed chamber choir of gifted student singers led by founding Artistic Director, Dr. Desmond Earley, based at University College Dublin College of Arts & Humanities. Scholars come from various academic disciplines and commit to an intensive programme of choral study.
Be all Merry is one of three new pieces especially composed for the Choral Scholars. This lively carol for choir, orchestra and violin by Irish composer Eoghan Desmond evokes the joyful play of Christmas in the lines ‘Be all merry in this house/Exultet celum laudibus!’.
The recording contains a remarkable setting of the Advent plainsong hymn "Christe Redemptor Omnium" for tenor solo, chorus, violin and violoncello by Ivo Antognini, crafted for Choral Scholars with the kind support of the Swiss Embassy in Dublin.
"The Adoration of the Magi" by American composer Timothy Stephens is a breathtaking setting of W. B. Yeats’ poetry. A beautiful Irish-language lullaby – "Cró na Nollag" – set by father and son, "Adhamhnán" and "Uinseann" Mac Domhnaill, and the much-loved Scottish tune simply titled "Suantraí", are also included.
The Irish Chamber Orchestra are also featured on a number of tracks including "The Wexford Carol" and "Carol of the Bells." The choir closes the album with the song most associated with friendship, hope and the promise of a new year, "Auld Lang Syne."
The post-production phase of this recording project took place as the world grappled with the outbreak of COVID-19. American composer Linda Kachelmeier’s piece – "We Toast the Days" – serves as a reminder of the strength, love and hope that resonates throughout the world not simply at Christmastide but also during periods of hardship.
Label Signum classics.
Britten: St. Nicholas: Ceremony of Carols, Crouch End Festival Chorus, BBC Concert Orchestra, Mark Le Brocq, Sally Pryce, David Temple
Crouch End Festival Chorus presents two Britten classics: Saint Nicolas and A Ceremony of Carols. Full of vibrancy and drama, Saint Nicolas is performed alongside the fabulous BBC Concert Orchestra and features tenor Mark Le Brocq as well as Coldfall Primary School Choir, members of Hertfordshire Chorus and Hannah Brine Choirs. The ever-popular A Ceremony of Carols is performed with harpist Sally Pryce, and both works are conducted by David Temple.
John Riesen and Gillian Riesen met performing professionally in 2014, as Artists in Residence with Shreveport Opera in Louisiana. As their working relationship grew, so did their romantic relationship. As they continued to perform around the world (Italy, China, and across the US), they got engaged, married, and now have a beautiful baby boy together. In that time they've performed duet concerts accompanied by their dear friend Neill Campbell, pianist.
With Covid-19 closing down theater in the US, they put their minds to a passion project they've long desired to make. A Christmas album of classic songs and duets. To accomplish this, they banded together with a family organization in Detroit, MI called Box Five Productions and a studio in Lansing, Michigan (Blue Griffin Recording) to put together this album to uplift the community and bring music and performances to so many in need of it during this challenging year:
Featuring songs in the style of Andy Williams, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, and Michael Buble such as:
It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year
It's Beginning to Look alot like Christmas
I'll Be Home for Christmas
(Everybody's Waitin' For) The Man with the Bag
O Holy Night
Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!
Sleigh Ride
White Christmas
Baby it's cold outside
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
The Christmas Song
It will be nothing short of beautiful, intimate, fun, adorable, and heartfelt. This album will also be featuring jazz trombone by Chris Glassman, and background vocals by Lindsay Campbell.
"Their Classical cover album, Christmas at Home, is a collection of the most revered Christmas songs from across the decades, revived by award-winning Tenor, John Riesen. During the soul-melting crescendos, drinking in his theatrically transfixing vocal timbre becomes more important than breathing. Their ardent operatic stretches perfectly compliment the arcanely uplifting Classical score which is breath-taking enough to abstract you from the fact that Christmas 2020 might be a little bleaker this year." -Amelia Vandergast (A & R Factory)
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 Ruppes 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.
Christmas Carols, SWR Vokal Ensemple, Marcus Creed
Christmas carols are an integral part of Christmas, along with plum pudding and turkey, paper crowns and mistletoe. They’re sung in all major cathedrals and churches, first and foremost in the chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. Nowadays, carols are associated with religion or Christmas, but this close link has developed only over time. First references to “caroles of Cristemas” can be found in British sources from around 1400. Around 1600 the carol could also take the form of a complex polyphonic choral work, such as William Byrd’s six-part "Carroll for Christmas Day" (1611).
During the 19th century, Christmas carols experienced a renaissance when Christmas was promoted as a holiday and commercialized.
From the beginning of the 20th century the Christmas carol gained renewed appreciation on the part of contemporary composers such as Gustav Holst, Benjamin Britten, Herbert Howells and others. This was due in no small part to Vaughan Williams’ musicological research and to the wide dissemination of traditional carols through the Oxford Book of Carols.
This recording presents singing at the highest level in Christmas Carols from the Middle Ages to the present day. Thomas Adès, for example, was commissioned to write "The Fayrfax Carol" in 1997. This is a CD which brings pure Christmas joy into your home.
Christmas in Czech PIano Music, Ksenia Kouzmenko
This program is a continuation of the two previous CD-projects with Czech music, "Whispering Leaves" (COBRA0069) and "Fenetre sur le jardin" (COBRA0070). This time the theme is Christmas ("Vanoce"), again with a number of world premieres of beautiful music which have been unjustly forgotten.
"Christmas Eve" and "A Child's Christmas Dream" by Josef Suk bring distinctly different Christmas atmospheres. The pieces are psychologically subtle, with many voices and complex harmonies, but always melodic, sincere, and generous.
The cycle "Vanoce" by Jaroslav Kvapil is the first world premiere on this CD. According to Ludvik Kundera, "it is not only the most personal work of Kvapil, but also an expression of an ardent life experience full of lyric beauty".
Here Kvapil's spontaneous musicality blossoms, his inexhaustible melodic creativity and natural musical intuition. The immediacy and intensity with which he expresses his emotions brings to mind the compositional style of his teacher, Janacek.
Three short pieces ("Sledge", "Lullaby", and "Christmas Carol") by Bohuslav Martinu render the atmosphere of the Christmas period and things that typically belong in it: snowy fun on a sledge, a children's lullaby with magical bells which get more and more festive, and a merry Christmas pageant with singing and dancing.
Novak was one of the best known pupils of Dvorak and one of the most important Czech composers of the beginning of the 20th century. Two of his works are presented on this CD. The "Songs on Winter Nights" are extremely varied in character: after an amorous moonlit night follows a nightly storm, after a mystical Christmas night a burlesque carnival's night. The Christmas sonatina has a warmly lyrical and dance-like character. In the second part Nova 769;k uses an old song from the period of Jan Hus, which was traditionally sung during Epiphany.
One of Novak's best pupils was Jaroslav Kricka. His cycle "Intimate Pieces", the second world premiere, was a Christmas present in 1912 and seems to be a tonal declaration of love. The intensity of its lyrical expression streams from beginning to end. The last small piece, "Christ the Lord is born" by Leos 780; Janacek is a charming and tender piano version of a very well-known Czech Christmas carol from the 15th century.
Ksenia Kouzmenko is internationally renowned for her sensitive and technically accomplished piano playing, and is a much sought after partner in chamber music. She recently discovered the joy of playing on an Erard grand piano, with its inspiring sound possibilities.
Label : Cobra
Siglo de Oro's programme explores the rich soundworld of this time and place: a sonic landscape ultimately quite different from the one Padilla had left behind in Europe. Evoking a 'Mass' at Christmas Eve affords the opportunity to include a number of villancicos - energetic, dance-like pieces whose captivating mixture of Mexican, Afro-Hispanic and Portuguese influences would have invigorated even the most sober churchgoer.
The theme of this album is the birth of Christ, reflected in the words and music of twenty-two carols spanning more than six centuries. Some of these carols have long been widely known and loved; others have become so thanks to the annual Christmas Eve Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at Kings College, Cambridge; a few are newly written. But all of them focus on the central event of the Christmas story the birth at Bethlehem and on the characters in that story: the angels, the shepherds, the wise men, and the mother with her child.
Exaltatio: Christmas Carols, Dagmar Peckova, Music Bhoemic, Joroslaw Krcek
The highly acclaimed Christmas CD Nativitas is now joined by a new festive album, bearing the title Exaltatio. While in Colloquial Latin the word means “exaltation” and “elation”, in Christian theology it has a more profound connotation: “elevation”.
The mezzo-soprano Dagmar Pecková has recorded yet another Christmas-themed album, featuring Czech and other European carols and folk songs hailing the Nativity. At Christmas, people feel much closer to one another than at any other time of the year, and it has been so for centuries.
The special seasonal atmosphere is what French, German, English and Polish songs have in common. Pecková has again reached for Baroque hymnbooks, in which piety combines with a majestic sublime mood.
The album also encompasses much more high-spirited and poetic folk carols. Jaroslav Krcek has made stylistic arrangements, whose singular signature relates to Musica Bohemica. The CD features several Baroque-inspired pieces he himself has composed. The magic of Christmas evidently continues to be celebrated by contemporary creators.
39th annual Christmas at Luther CD.
Christmas at Luther 2020: For Everyone Born contains eleven selections pre-recorded using COVID-19 protocols of physical distancing and masking. Musical selections highlight the intersection of Christmas with continuing conversations over issues of justice and equity in our communities.
Based around a selection of Christmas favourites, the recording opens with a stunning new arrangement of the well-known medieval carol, Gaudete .
There are also some less-familiar items. Of great interest are Walford Davies's rarely-heard setting for upper voices and piano of William Blake's "The Lamb", "Adam lay ybounden" by Roy Massey, and Huw Williams's own arrangement of "Away in a manger" - written for Her Majesty The Queen's Christmas day broadcast in December 2015.
Since Bath Abbey's foundation as a Benedictine Monastery in the 8th century, choral music has lain at the heart of its worship.
Machet die Tore weit, Kammelchor Bad Homburg: Christmas Music at St. Thomas in Liepzig
Most Thomas cantors such as Tobias Michael, Sebastian Knüpfer, Johann Schelle or Johann Kuhnau are hardly known today. Bach's immediate predecessors have created wonderful music, which must be discovered here through works for Advent and Christmas. The most magnificent is Knüpfer's Dies est laetitiae for 22 voices, divided into a five-part trumpet choir with timpani, strings, bassoon, three flutes as well as six soloists and a four-part choir. Johann Caspar Horn was not a Cantor of Thomas, but his setting It was at the time from the Gospel of Luke was demonstrably performed in the St. Thomas Church.
My Kind of Chrsitmas: Aliki
“The release of my Christmas album “My kind of Christmas” is a dream come true for me. Christmas is my favourite holiday of the year. A Christmas album was something I wanted to do for a long time. The difficulties that humanity is going through, during this period, have given me the inspiration to give the world a gift that will bring hope for a better tomorrow”, Aliki comments.
The album was recorded at the famous Smecky Studios, in Prague, with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
“My kind of Christmas” is a journey into Aliki’s Christmas memories, from her childhood until the arrival of her eldest son, who was born on Christmas day. The album is a collection of classic and contemporary Christmas songs that have been loved and continue to be loved around the world. Timeless and unforgettable musical pieces, which we all have associated with the happiness of our childhood, but also the love and warmth that surrounds the Christmas season.
The album includes the song “Silent Night”, which captures the true meaning of Christmas; the birth of Christ, as well as the importance of the inner search for truth and love. The track “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is a wish, from the bottom of Aliki’s heart, spreading the magic of Christmas to the whole world. The album includes some all-time classic Christmas songs, like “Santa Baby” and Schubert’s “Ave Maria”. The last track, “Angels We Have Heard on High”, lifts the soul with its timeless lyrics.
The remainder of the programme is made up of largely well-known carols, though occasionally in an arrangement that throws unexpected new light on to these favourites. Spread amongst the choir items are four Chorale Preludes by J.S.Bach.
This collection of Christmas carols and organ music mixes together both the well-known and the relatively unknown. It ranges across the centuries – from the ancient "Coventry Carol" through to Poulenc’s radiantly beautiful setting of "O Magnum Mysterium." The inclusion of Jacob Handl’s "Resonet In Laudibus," Sweelinck’s "Hodie Christus Natus Est" and "In Dulci Jubilo" reflects the choir’s consistent championship of music from the Renaissance era as well as more modern influences.
Label : Warner Classics
SILENT AS SNOW: 'The Christmas story has become a universal story in our time. It speaks of peace and reconciliation, love, hope and generosity, ideals we all can and ought to strive for, especially in a time when our part of the world is more turbulent and unpredictable than it has been for a long time.
Vox Clara, Scholacanturum Riga, Late Medieval Chang from Riga, Hamburg, Lomorges
Latvia's Schola Cantorum Riga shines a light on the music of medieval Riga, Hamburg, Lund and Limoges in historically informed performances which aim to present the music as it would have been performed and heard in medieval Livonia (now Latvia).
Interwoven with Christmas music, the album also includes world premiere recordings of recently discovered arrangements including "Kyrie eleison ymas" from Riga Cathedral's Riga Missal (Missale Rigense) manuscript.
Led by the leading scholar of medieval music in the Baltic states, Guntars Pranis, the resident male vocal ensemble of Riga Cathedral, Schola Cantorum Riga, presents a unique insight into medieval Latvian music tradition in its latest release from SKANi.
Vox Clara features medieval music Gregorian chant and examples of late medieval repertoire to reflect the Northern European musical traditions of Hamburg, Riga and Lund as well as the rich heritage of early polyphony in Limoges.
In the Middle Ages, each of these cities had its own individual cultural expression and musical style. Although Gregorian chant still dominated sacred music during the period, it existed alongside a variety of paraliturgical and secular genres of music in which improvisation and the respective local musical traditions played an important role and inspired constant interaction.
One and the same chant could sound very different depending on the location in which it was performed. Vox Clara offers a journey through this vivid and diverse musical life of late medieval Europe through a distinctly Latvian lens that has not been recorded before.
Schola Cantorum Riga here performs the music in a way that serves to present something close to the true sound of sacred chant as it would have been performed in Riga during the medieval period. Inspired by the research of its director Guntars Pranis, the ensemble draws on Riga's medieval chant tradition and the influence of folk tradition and polyphony that infiltrated sacred music during that time. The bagpipes, hurdy gurdy and ancient kokle instrument - all used in Latvian traditional music and elements of the ancient form of traditional Latvian vocal polyphony, Teiksana or sauksana ("saying" or "calling") as heard in "Miserere mei," help to present the ensemble's interpretation of how this music might have sounded in medieval Riga. The "Veni Sancte Spiritus" is sung in the early Latvian Livonian language, and the ensemble decided to sing the Latin words throughout the album in their local Latvian accent.
The male vocal ensemble is resident at Riga Cathedral, considered the largest medieval church in the Baltics, which houses the Riga Missal (Missale Rigense). The 15th century manuscript the first written musical document in Latvian history - describes church and liturgical life at the Riga Cathedral during the medieval period. Vox Clara includes the world premiere recording of "Kyrie eleison ymas, discovered from this manuscript alongside world premiere recordings of arrangements from other sources including newly- discovered versions of "Veni Sancte Spiritus," "Plangas cum lacrimis," "Quasi stella matutina" and "Gaude Maria."
The Christmas theme, in its full diversity, also weaves throughout the album in "Res est admirabilis," "Vox clara," "Uterus hodie" and "Gaude Maria."
To Shorten Winter's Sadness by Passamezzo
Tudor and Stuart music for Christmas and Winter
A selection of carols, ballads, rounds, madrigals, dance melodies and consort songs, and follows the religious calendar from Advent through the twelve days of Christmas to Candlemas. It also describes many of the festive customs of the time, with feasts and revels through the cold of winter, and fairs upon the frozen river.
released November 17, 2020
Eleanor Cramer: Bass viol/Soprano
Christopher Goodwin: Lute/guitar
Alison Kinder: Viols, recorders
Tamsin Lewis: Renaissance violin/viols/alto
Jack Merivale: Actor/Baritone
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