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.