December daily: Christmas music

[resonant]

wychwood prompts: What is your very favourite Christmas music? What makes good Christmas music for you? Which one CD etc would you recommend?

For those of you who just met me, I have 1,049 Christmas songs, including eleven distinct melodies of "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night." It's fair to say that I really love Christmas music.

As far as what makes for good Christmas music -- well. I like acoustic instruments. If there's a vocal ensemble, I like it to be small, as opposed to something like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir where you can't pick out a single voice. I'm very partial to 6/8 time. When it comes to religious music, I quite like the weird and unorthodox, which is why I also have three distinct melodies of "Down In Yon Forest."

The hardest element to define is: If you'll think of a continuum more or less between quality and authenticity, there's a sweet spot in the middle but more on the authentic side. In other words, I've been known to reject a recording because it was too off-key, but I'm much more likely to reject a recording because it's "too slick" or "overproduced" or some other vague thing that means too far away from simple enjoyment of the music. Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band are right on that sweet spot for me, and so are the Christmas Revels.



The core of my Christmas music collection are music from these CDs:

The Revels: "The Christmas Revels," "Sing We Now of Christmas," and "Christmas Day In the Morning" and "Wassail! Wassail! Early American Christmas Music"

Exultation

The Boston Camerata: "Xmas: A Renaissance Christmas" -- the first Christmas CD I ever bought

Joseph Est Bien Marie

The Chieftains: "The Bells of Dublin"

Ding Dong! Merrily On High

Christmastide Musicians: "A New England Christmas" (all instrumental)

O Come, All Ye Faithful

Duke Ellington: "Nutcracker Suite"

Sugar Rum Cherry

Early Music New York: "A Colonial Christmas" (which I believe I got from myalexandria)

Paxton (a different tune for "Joy To the World")

Ella Fitzgerald: "Ella Wishes You a Swinging Christmas" (this is probably about as far as I go on the "well-performed" end of the continuum)

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Maddy Prior & the Carnival Band: "Carols and Capers" and "A Tapestry of Carols"

See Amid the Winter's Snow

Mike and Peggy Seeger and Family: "American Folk Songs for Christmas" (this is probably about as far as I go on the "authentic" end of the continuum)

Shine Like a Star In the Morning

on this day earth shall ring: "Songs for Christmas"

A La Nanita Nana

Vienna Boys Choir: "Music for the Festive Season" (which was a free CD provided with a subscription to BBC Music Magazine)

Tritsch-Tratsch Polka §

The Waverly Consort: "Christmas from East Anglia to Appalachia"

The Gloucestershire Wassail


It would be cruel, cruel, to make me choose just one, but if I had to, it would probably be one of the Revels collections -- that's enough variety that I wouldn't miss the rest too terribly much.

Comments

[kindkit]

Cool, thanks!

Er, you don't happen to have a copy of "In Dulci Jubilo" as performed by Cathy Ryan and Liam Tiernan, do you? I got that from somebody years ago and then I lost it in a computer crash, and I miss it because it's awesome.

[resonant]

I do!

[kindkit]

Yay! I wonder if it was you I originally got it from. Because several of the other songs you posted here are among the old/unusual Christmas songs I downloaded from somebody.

ETA: Your "Gloucestershire Wassail" link just seems to link back to this post, I'm afraid.

[resonant]

Thanks -- fixed it!

It may very well have been me; I've posted a lot of Christmas stuff over the years.

[kindkit]

Coolness. Thanks again for all these!

[umbo]

That Boston Camerata cd is always the very first one I put on when I decide it's time to listen to Christmas music again. That soprano voice singing "Noelle" is just perfection.

[resonant]

I checked it out from the library in 1991, and it was the start of my collection! Before that, I listened to the same Christmas music you hear everywhere -- my mother is fond of Irish tenors and has quite a lot of Christmas music in solo male voices, and of course we had "The Nutcracker" and such, but I'd never heard anything like that.

[some_stars]

Your Christmas music posts have totally changed my life :D And oh, I FINALLY managed to get Judy Hauff's CDs, and I am currently enjoying "Angels on the Wing" with the sweet, sweet delight that only comes from delaying one's gratification for seven whole entire years. So thank you for that as well!

[resonant]

I don't know if I ever changed the life of anybody who wasn't a relative before!

Tell me -- is there any information on the Judy Hauff CDs about what the story is on how those recordings came to be made? I got the music from someone here, actually, and I've never seen the physical CDs.

[some_stars]

i had to return the CDs to the library (god bless ILL), but i took photos of the liner notes and will upload them later this week when i'm not traveling/trying to finish finals!

[resonant]

Cool! No rush -- if it's easier after Christmas that's OK.

[out_there]

When it comes to Christmas music, I'm more of the pop/over-produced/boppy end of the scale. I've found that the Glee recordings are most of my Christmas collection (it's only about 30 songs or so, so not a huge collection) and cover most of the cheesy Christmas pop that makes me happy. (I mean, "Santa Baby" and "All I want for Christmas" and "Last Christmas" are all Glee-covered faves. But so Everclear's "I will be hating you for Christmas" and relient K's "I'm Getting Nuthing' For Christmas" and... oh, Solstice Assembly's "One More Shopping Day" which is lovely to sing along to.)

For someone who loves hymns and religious singalongs at Christmas, the Christmas music I've selected is very secular.

[resonant]

I have a big soft spot for Mariah Carey's "All I Want For Christmas," and I like some of those bitter pop Christmas songs from the '70s. ("Father Christmas, give us some money! Ain't got no time for your silly toys!") And I'm very fond of doo-wop and rockabilly. But most of what I love best is Ella or older.

[jesse_the_k]

Now I have a couple delightful days ahead enjoying new music.

Don't know if the general cancon tendencies of fandom extend to your music, but Bruce Cockburn made a lovely Christmas record twenty years back, named (surprise) Christmas. In addition to some old reliables, he has nice originals and what he claims are Huron lyrics for the Huron Carol.

If you're interested, I know somebody who knows somebody.

[resonant]

Oh, I have that one and love it!

[wychwood]

Oh man there's a Bruce Cockburn Christmas album? DEAR MR COCKBURN HERE IS ALL MY MONEY PLEASE TAKE IT

(thanks for mentioning this! it looks fab!)

[jesse_the_k]

I'm happy to serve.

While not my first fandom, Bruce Cockburn was my first online fandom -- we called ourselves "Humans," naturally, and predated the web. I happily offered my sofa to a cheerful Australian who spent a summer following BC to all his NAmerican concerts, and that was an excellent introduction to fan values. His music carried me through a very hard time.

[gurrier]

Thank you for those! The music is one of the best things about Christmas!

In return, here's Don Oíche Úd i mBeithil by Lasairfhíona Ní Chonaola. The Chieftains and Celtic Woman have pretty well known versions, but nostalgia and homesickness are part of the appeal of this one for me! It appeared several years ago on a CD, Tóg Sos, produced by a local-to-my-hometown childcare group.

[resonant]

That's a neat collection and a haunting song! What's the song about?

[gurrier]

The Chieftains' version has a pretty good translation read by Burgess Meredith. You can hear it on YouTube, or the lyrics are here.

The minor differences are that the Irish version talks of the Christchild in a basket while the Virgin nurses him with love, and the shepherds are sheltering on the rocky hillside when God's messenger appears in the bright opening of the sky.

Celtic Woman's version is here, but it's a bit fussy for my taste.

[greyeyes]

Thank you! You have such good timing, I plan on making myself a new Christmas cd tomorrow!

[resonant]

Yay!

[minutia_r]

Have you got Hather Dale's Christmas Album? It seems up your alley (and also has a version of the Huron Carol on it).

[resonant]

I bought several of her songs from Amazon last year (including "Ave Maria," "The Song of the Ship," and "Quem Pastores"), but she's right on the edge of the amount of studio I can hear in a song and still enjoy it.

[wychwood]

This is really fab! Thanks for posting it - I'll be looking into these :)

In return, I think you might like my 2013 Christmas music discovery - Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker's new album. I believe it's only going to be available in December, so you may wish to take a look. Folk, she has a lovely voice, some nice unusual carols, and I'm really enjoying the whole album. She's not Maddy Prior, but for me it definitely falls into the same kind of mental slot as the Carnival Band album.

(Also, I bought the CD because I like to have physical copies, and it arrived in a little parcel with a hand-written Christmas card signed by the artists! There's something really sweet about that.)

[jesse_the_k]

Very few people are Maddy Prior. Oh! the day I first heard the Silly Sisters!

Nevertheless, thanks for introducing me to Clarke & Walker.

[wychwood]

This is true! She does have a truly fabulous voice (and June Tabor is pretty great too)

[resonant]

How neat! I got a folk song by them from the Cover Lay Down blog, but I didn't know they had Christmas music too.

I'm annoyed with Amazon; every year at Christmastime I used to poke around and find ten or so new songs and download them, and it was as simple as downloading any other file, but now I can't figure out any way to buy songs from Amazon without it insisting on involving me in the Amazon music player software, which means a simple purchase now requires launching a big slow piece of software that brings my ancient MacBook to a near-standstill.

[wychwood]

Yes! Cover Lay Down posted their "We Three Kings" from this album a week or so back, which is where I discovered it.

I hate that I have to buy mp3s one at a time now, a separate transaction for every. single. track (unless I'm buying a full album, at least). Fortunately they don't have installable software for Linux, so I just download the tracks one at a time from the cloud player. That sucks for you, though.

[mergatrude]

Thank you for being so generous (once again) with your music! ♥

[resonant]

Always a pleasure!

[riverlight]

Oh yayyyy, thanks for this! So wonderful!

[resonant]

Enjoy it!