Almost every year, someone in our parish asks me to recommend some recordings of Christmas music. Since I’ve been collecting such albums since before there were commercial cassette tapes readily available (let alone CDs or MP3s), it’s not easy to come up with a short list. Over the twelve days of Christmas, I hope to have the time and discipline to offer here some suggestions about music to listen to that transcends the tendency toward sentimentalism in the sounds of Christmas that characterizes (tragically) the experience of far too many people. I’ll start with a very approachable recording that features a number of familiar carols and hymns, including many arrangements that have been…
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Recommended recording: Hail, gladdening Light
Originally released in 1991, this collection of 23 short pieces is sub-titled “Music of the English Church,” as the pieces have become standards in the choral repertoire within the Anglican tradition. Some of the pieces, however, were originally written for use in the Roman Catholic rite, some for use in a domestic setting (back in the good old days when people gathered to sing multi-part music together rather than watch TV). The performers are the reliable Cambridge Singers, a choir of 28 or so voices assembled by conductor/composer John Rutter from former members of the many Cambridge chapel choirs. The composers represented date from the early 16th century (John Taverner,…