The Christmas Carols Blog: Large Christmas Works: Part 1: The Renaissance

Large Christmas Works: Part 1: The Renaissance - A Working List 1400-1599

Compiled by Ray Rojas

Updated Dec. 29, 2023

Editor's Note: This list was originally in one blog post but due to the amount of YouTube videos we embed, the post would take a long time to load on some browsers, so we have divided it into six parts by classical music period. We have kept the same introduction for each post.

Previous post: The Rennaissance

We spend so much time focusing on Christmas carols on this blog and our social media. The carol is the namesake of our blog. However, I bet composers of larger Christmas works are saying, "What about us?"

About the list

So here is another working list as we attempt to chronicle large Christmas works and medleys. I bet there is an annotated bibliography done by some great scholar hidden in some hidden corner of a university library, I wanted to present not just a list but an audio/video of the piece so that it is readily available for the listener.

Although the three-minute mark is more of a post-recording phenomenon, I have used it as our mark for what makes a larger Christmas work. Some pieces are just above and others way above. There are some that are so famous, we had to include them even if they were under three minutes.

As you know, we feature a lot of winter-themed classical music across our social media and blog, but sadly, we will not include them here because it would be an endless list. So, Sergei Prokofiev's Troika's "Sleigh Ride" or even Leopold Morzart's "Sleight Ride" will not be included. If the winter piece mentions Christmas will be the exception.

About Medleys

I was hesitant to use the various Christmas carol medleys out there, but I think the study of the medley is an important one. In the mariachi world that I was once part of, there are a number of medleys called "popourri" in Spanish. There some really good ones, and some not so good. I think the main marker of a good quality medley is the transition, although sly modulations are also impressive. While your making the transition, can the arranger give a prelude of the next song while still in the former?

O Magnum mysterium

We also hesitated to include "O Magnum mysterium," but being one of the most famous Christmas texts, we just could not. However, we limited their inclusion only to those composition over three minutes or if they had multiple movements.

Chronology

Those works which I do not have a date for, I have put at the bottom while I research the date. I have use dates of publication or first recording or but a "before" date using the date of the video. For some composers in which we do not know the date of publication of the work, we put the date of death of the composer to help the reader in placing in time.

Obviously, there is a lot of Christmas works out there that has not been recorded or are in audio-only and have not been posted to YouTube. See our list of Lost Christmas Music.

Also, some Christmas works do not have a full video of the entire piece, so I have only posted the first video of the composition hoping you will go to YouTube to see the rest of the videos/movements. For example, John Rutter's Dancing Day, I did not post a video of the entire work, but just the first movement. If later find a video of the work in its entirety, will replace the video we have with the video of the entire work.

Yes, this is a rabbit hole we gone down and this list will probably never be complete.

However, from what I have, it is a good look at the trajectory of Christmas music in the choral and classical world from Bach's Christmas Oratorio to Patrick Hawes' The Nativity and Bob Chilcott's Christmas Oratorio.

2000 Modern to Present

1522 - death of composer