A special new jazz album for Christmas

Kristin Korb: That Time of Year

Every year I'm on the lookout for a special new jazz Christmas album, and I've found one that will surely be part of my holiday playlist in years to come: That Time of Year, from the Danish vocalist/bassist Kristin Korb. Korb modulates her voice with the expert bassist's feel for what her fine trio - Magnus Hjorth on piano and Snorre Kirk on drums, along with featured soloist Mathias Heise on harmonica - is up to all the time. Rather than a soloist with accompaniment we have Korb's vocals as part of a very musical whole.



The album's final song is my favourite. Though Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep) isn't really a Christmas song, the fact that Irving Berlin wrote it for Bing Crosby to sing in 1954's White Christmas gives it all the authenticity you could want. The arrangement calls out for guest appearances from Linus and Snoopy and Bill Melendez's animation (though Hjorth's superb, spare piano here is probably more like Bill Evans than Vince Guaraldi). The gorgeous song and fine arrangement, along with Korb's Blossom Dearie-style voice, makes this an instant classic, and worthy of Christmas airtime everywhere, from Spotify in front of your tree to the Walmart PA on Black Friday.

The spot-lit miracle

Das Neugeborne Kindelein: Christmas Cantatas by Buxtehude, Telemann and J. S. Bach

Although we are deeply indebted to the light, because by means of it we can find our way, ply our tasks, read, distinguish one another; and yet for all that the vision of the light itself is more excellent and more beautiful than all these various uses of it. The contemplation of things as they are, without error or confusion, without substitution or imposture, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention.

 - Francis Bacon *

Old Master paintings on the covers of classical music discs can be a bit of cliché, but occasionally an especially relevant one is chosen, and that's definitely the case with this new Accent disc of Christmas cantatas from Baroque Germany, performed by Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande. The Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerrit van Honthorst, painted in 1622, and now in the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, is an amazing presentation of the nativity. It's a Caravaggesque interpretation of John 1:9, "The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world." Sigiswald Kuijken has made that connection as well, in his excellent liner notes, which emphasize the  intimate atmosphere, but which, he says, "by no means excludes theatrical effects!" Of the beautiful Buxtehude In dulci jubilo he says:

... the fourth verse shines (as if under a halo) in a completely new glow, in that the two violins suddenly express the joy of the angels (“gaudia”) with their “ringing bells” in a frenzy of rapid movements.

Even in the early 18th century Christmas was a time to mix traditional music with newer, forward-looking sounds. I love Georg Philipp Telemann's archaic-sounding cantata Ein Kindelein so löbelich, TWV 9:5, from around 1720, but sounding at least a century older, at least until an Amen that sprouts Baroque curlicues around the more severe contrapuntal sounds of the stile antico. This is virtuoso composition that plays with styles in a kind of Enlightenment Post-Modernism. J. S. Bach's gorgeous cantata Ich freue mich in dir, BWV 133, from 1724, is a perfect example of how the great composer turned music into sounds of pure joy. Kuijken and La Petite Bande provide a joyful interpretation of the theatrical intimacy in this music, as apt an illustration of the show-stopping, spot-lit miracle that was the Nativity as the great painting of Gerrit van Honthorst.


* The quote from Francis Bacon, which is more or less contemporaneous to van Honthorst's painting and a century of more before the music on this disc, is from Temporis Masculus Partus, 'The Masculine Birth of Time', from 1605. It's well-known today, as you'll quickly see from a Google search, because the great photographer Dorothea Lange had the last sentence posted on her darkroom wall.

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother, Oklahoma, 1936

This disc will be released on October 19, 2018.

Lovely Christmas jazz, spare and sad

Christmas At Steinway Hall: arrangements for jazz piano

'Tasteful jazz arrangements', it says on the back cover, but these are much more sophisticated arrangements than you're likely to find at the lounge at the local Sheraton or Marriott Hotel. In a letter to his father Mozart praises a pianist's "taste, feeling, and a brilliant style of playing", and this is the territory we're in here with pianist Simon Mulligan, who gets a fine piano to play on, in a great venue, with first-class engineering and presentation for this lovely disc from Steinway & Sons. The Christmas jazz antecedents here are Oscar Peterson, whose Christmas album is first-class, but quite a bit livelier than this one; Bill Evans, whose Santa Claus is Coming to Town is a treat, full of wit and good humour; and of course Vince Guaraldi, who brought jazz Christmas music to the masses with the debut of A Charlie Brown Christmas on CBS on December 9, 1965. Mulligan has major classical bona fides (Chopin, Beethoven, Shostakovich) and a thorough grounding in the American Songbook to go with what seems to be an encyclopedic knowledge of jazz piano styles. Listen for bits of Art Tatum, George Shearing, Dave Brubeck, but in these arrangements each song has its mood and its story to tell, so none of them feels like a pastiche.

One of my favourite tracks is the first one on the disc, a Hark The Herald Angels Sing that keeps taking completely unexpected turns into surprising places: here to Chopin, there to Scott Joplin, over to Gershwin. There's also a very spare version of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas that's a real stand-out, but I especially loved the final song, a Silent Night with a real valedictory feel to it. It has the peace and beauty of falling snow at night, but also all of the melancholy we've come to expect from Christmas songs in a minor key, bringing some solace, but also, as Orhan Pamuk remarks in another context, "adding depth to our sorrow".

Christmas with subtlety and grace

Lux: Music for Christmas 

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

I've talked before about the two tendencies that enhance a Christmas album, familiarity and novelty, and this new ATMA release has them in exactly the right mix. Paul Mealor's In the Bleak Midwinter, written in 2016, is a lovely setting for choir a cappella and baritone soloist. Besides its musical merits, hearing the new version rather than the accustomed ones of Gustav Holst and Harold Darke has the effect of sending one back to Christina Rossetti's sublime original poem. The outstanding Choir of the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul, under the direction of Jean-Sebastien Vallee, sings this song with subtlety and grace, but also with the fervour of a community that understands "snow on snow, snow on snow". The 1994 setting of Magnum Mysterium by Morten Lauridsen has attained classic status, and shows up fairly often in Christmas programs; again, it's beautifully sung here. Another new classic, Eric Whitacre's Lux aurumque , which gives the disc its title, sounds as good in this live performance as some top choirs. It's a tribute to Jean-Sebastien Vallee and his talented singers that the more erudite numbers co-exist so comfortably with the more traditional choir-and-organ pieces such as David Willcocks' arrangements of Once in Royal David's City and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.

Organist Jonathan Oldengarm plays a major role in a number of choral numbers, but also has quite a few solo numbers. He plays an impressive instrument of nearly 7,000 pipes, made in 1931 by Casavant Frères of St. Hyacinthe. His interpretation of Sigrid Karg-Elert's Choral-Improvisation on In dulci jubilo which ends the disc is quite outstanding. ATMA has put together a winner for Christmas.

This album will be released on November 17, 2017.

A superb Christmas sampler

Choral Music for Christmas: works by J.S. Bach, Zelenka, Mendelssohn, Reger, Saint-Saens, Handel & others

Summer is winding down; autumn officially arrives tomorrow, so what is coming up Real Soon Now? That's right, the Holiday Season! At Christmas, we're always looking out for new music we've never heard, but not forgetting all the same works we love to hear every year. The Sampler Disc is a great chance to do this, and we have an especially good one here from Carus. You may not know Heinichen's Te Deum laudamus, but I plan on putting it in my regular Xmas playlist rotation; the same for Zelenka's Laudate pueri Dominum. These are very fine performances, with stylish playing, and good recent recordings (2004 and 2012). Then you get a really nice Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah, from Kammerchor Stuttgart & Barokorchester Stuttgart. This to-ing and fro-ing between evergreens and surprisingly lovely unfamiliar works goes on through the whole disc, with a focus on very high quality choral singing and fine orchestral support, all at a reasonable price. I'll let you choose your own favourites, but I have to single out another amazing song. It's Philip Lawson's arrangement of Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, sung by the Calmus Ensemble; it was included in their 2009 disc Calmus Christmas Carols. Pour yourself an eggnog and listen:



I recommend this disc very highly. Merry Christmas!

Here are the details of the works included:

This disc will be released on October 6, 2017.

Keep cool at Christmas

David Ian, Vintage Christmas Trio

In Joel Dinnerstein's The Origins of Cool in Postwar America we learned about the jazz roots of cool; if anyone could be said to have 'invented' cool, it would be Lester Young. When I heard Vince Guaraldi's music for A Charlie Brown Christmas on December 9, 1965 I heard Christmas music with a cool new sound. Of course I didn't know then about Bill Evans' amazing 1963 recording of Santa Claus is Coming to Town, or the other Christmas jazz standards from the late 40s and the 50s, but this was prime time on CBS (or rather, in Canada, the CBC), so I got that something had changed in the mainstream. Ever since then I've been looking out for this kind of hip sophistication to go along with more homespun and square (but still cherished), Christmas traditions.

In 2015 the Toronto-born David Ian released his first Vintage Christmas album, a very pleasant collection of Christmas standards inspired, he says, by Bill Evans and Vince Guaraldi. He's back this year with Vintage Christmas Trio, which features bassist Jon Estes and drummer Josh Hunt. These are appropriately relaxed and spare arrangements, steering clear of lounge excrescences and adding tasteful bits of Bach and the blues. There are some really successful songs here; one of my favourites is the under-appreciated Johnny Marks tune I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, which features a fine bass solo by Estes with Bill Evans-style voicing from Ian. Another fine song is It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, with standout percussion from Hunt. I heard this morning the sad, sad news about the passing of Walter Becker. His Steely Dan partner Donald Fagen said in a statement "We liked a lot of the same things: jazz (from the twenties through the mid-sixties)..." This isn't about any neo-Bop purism, especially of the muddled kind peddled in La La Land. It's really more about the nostalgic legacy of the Baby Boomer (Becker was only two years older than me), and that's what we're getting in this mid-century-designed album, for the Feast Day of Baby Boomer Nostalgia, December 25th.

The new album will be released on November 3, 2017. Until then, here's a nice version of Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne's Christmas Waltz from the first Vintage Christmas.

A charming Baroque compilation from Sweden

The new Telemann Corelli Bach album by the new Swedish group Höör Barock is full of special touches, with a background of stylish, historically-informed performance. Corelli's Christmas Concerto op. 6 no. 8, for example, includes two solo recorder parts, played here by Emilie Roos and group leader Dan Laurin. Along with oboes and bassoon in the tutti, and the special appearance of a baroque harp in the final movement, this charmingly rustic pastoral scene is a nice change from the strings-only version we hear many times every Holiday Season. There's a similar familiar/unfamiliar situation with Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in F major, the composer's own arrangement of his Fourth Brandenburg Concerto. This is run through in brisk fashion, with splendid playing by Anna Paradiso at the keyboard. The harpsichord sound works well in this odd mixture of solo and continuo instrument; the BIS engineers have struck the right balance, I think, between blending in and sticking out. Of the rest of the music, the stand-out work is Telemann's splendid Ouverture-Suite ‘Hamburger Ebb und Fluth’, with its energetic and graceful dances. This new recording tends to be rather light and frothy, with its considerable charm more on the surface. I still prefer the classic, more dignified version by Musica Antiqua Köln under Reinhard Goebel. But I'm glad to have heard this excellent compilation from one of Sweden's greatest exports: BIS.  The record drops January 6, 2017.

A winning formula for Christmas

The new Novum Christmas CD Nowell Sing We! from Robert Quinney and his Choir of New College Oxford is in the classic English choral tradition, long-established but not conventional, with the highest standards of singing, lovely solo voices, full acoustics, and arrangements that provide both the comfort of the familiar, and the excitement of the novel (to North American ears at least). Quinney has chosen Advent and Christmas songs that range from the simple and folk-like (Charles Ives' A Christmas carol) to the more sophisticated (Richard Rodney Bennett's intense setting of In the Bleak Midwinter), with some requisite standards (Quinney's fine arrangement of  O come, O come Emmanuel, and Vaughan Williams' O Little Town of Bethlehem). A winning formula!

Wonder and mystery from The Sixteen

The Sixteen's Song of the Nativity is an outstanding Christmas disc of the more contemplative kind. There are celebratory pieces here, but the nativity is a low-key, hushed affair.

O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
jacentem in praesepio!

O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying in a manger!

Putting across this combination of wonder and mystery requires great control and finesse, which Harry Christophers and his wonderful singers The Sixteen provide at the highest level, for example in this beautiful version by Morten Lauridsen which leads off the album.



The control and purity of the voices is really outstanding. Christophers and his choir sustain the long lines of Peter Warlock's great Bethlehem Down in spite of an audaciously slow speed. I wasn't convinced at first, but the beautiful sound they make almost convinces me the choice of tempo wasn't a mistake. The program doesn't provide much variety of mood or styles, but rather it provides a respite from Holiday hustle and bustle, and perhaps a chance to meditate upon more serious matters than shopping or parties. There are occasional breaks into less sophisticated and subtle music, including a number of rustic "traditional" songs where the singers sometimes indulge in a bit of Celtic celebration, but nothing too raucous! The album comes to a triumphant close with James Macmillan's O Radiant Dawn from his Strathclyde Motets, which is about light shining on "the darkness of those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death."

Fine Christmas music from Montreal

The Montreal-based Arion Orchestre Baroque, led by Alexander Weimann provides an authentic 18th century German Christmas celebration in this excellent new disc from ATMA Classique (due November 4, 2016). With a relatively small (26 player) orchestra and five vocal soloists doubling as the choir, you'd expect a small-scale, intimate performance, but there's also plenty of pomp and exultation to go with the quiet, personal story of a young girl and an angel. Here's the scene at the spectacular Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal at Arion's December 5, 2015 concert (from the album booklet; photograph by Jean Guimond). The album was recorded a few days later at  Église Saint-Augustin, Mirabel.

There are two other things special about this recording. The first is the inclusion of the four laudes, Christmas hymns interpolated into an earlier version of the Magnificat that are rarely included in performance or recordings. The second is the marvellous Christmas Day Cantata by Johann Kuhlau, which is really quite beautiful, and which deserves much more attention in people's Christmas playlists. This disc will certainly feature in mine!

Brass for the holidays

Brass music is an important part of the Christmas season, so it's nice to see this Naxos album (due November 11, 2016) from the London-based Septura brass septet (4 trumpets, 2 trombones, tuba, bass trombone). Indeed, this is one of the best Christmas albums I've heard in years, with amazing arrangements and outstanding musicianship. Sure there are lots of old favourites, but they end up sounding new. Matthew Knight's arrangement of Harold Darke's great In the Bleak Midwinter, for example, is really special, as is his version of my favourite carol, Peter Warlock's Bethlehem Down. Less familiar pieces include the celebratory Canite Tuba of Palestrina, a couple of sombre pieces from Rachmaninov's All-Night Vigils, and a lovely arrangement by Simon Cox of Tchaikovsky's Crown of Roses. A very strong recommendation: wrap it up and put it under the tree.*

* but then open it right away and play it.

Old favourites at Christmas

If there's one classical CD I've listened to more than any other in the past decade, it's this one with Les Violons du Roy under their founder, Bernard Labadie. Or rather, it's the original of this new reissue by ATMA Classique, first released by Dorian Sono Luminus in 1993. The reissue is due out on November 4, 2016. In some ways it's easier to review a brand new disc I've never heard before than a cherished one that has its MP3 files worn down by constant listening. It's hard to be objective about something I know so well. Perhaps a new version, even by the same group, might be more stylish. After all, the art and science of Historically Information Performance moves ahead every year. But surely there's something to be said, especially at Christmas time, for dearly loved tradition. This is simply the best selection of Baroque pastoral music, which goes best with snow falling on Christmas Eve.

This tweet is six years old!

My favourite Xmas CD this year: Les Violons du Roy, Christmas Symphonies, Lalande, Pezel, +more @Sono__Luminus - listening @NaxosMusicLib

— Dean Villa-Frey (@villa_lobos) December 18, 2010

A brightly-lit classic with a refined aesthetic

Okay, here we go. The Christmas albums for review are starting to (virtually) pile up, and you all probably want some guidance about what to buy for Aunt Emma this year. Lots of great music this year! So pour the eggnog and rum and we'll get started. Pop by every so often during the next month to see what's on offer.

Let's start big and brash, shall we? Sir Andrew Davis has prepared a new, updated concert edition of Handel's Messiah. This version, to be released November 4, 2016, is on the Out There side of a line that goes from Absolutely HIP through Mozart's trombones-and-clarinets version to Eugene Goossen's notorious adaptation recorded in 1959 by Sir Thomas Beecham. Now I live mostly in the HIP world; there's nothing I like more than a gut string being played by a baroque bow without the slightest bit of vibrato. But I also love honest, expressive music, with full-throated, subtle singing and passionate, disciplined playing by world class musicians. There's plenty of that here, with the superlative Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and Toronto Symphony Orchestra and four excellent vocal soloists. Davis brings his significant conducting expertise to bear synchronizing these  large forces in the reverberant Roy Thompson Hall, while the engineers give the usual Chandos sheen to the sound, which naturally favours the voices.

The whole production was recorded at a couple of live concerts from December 2015, where it seems everyone was having fun. The marketing team at the TSO called it a "Technicolour" Messiah. If the original Messiah is a black and white classic masterpiece, the new edition is bright and sumptuous, but not a garish widescreen blockbuster from the 50s. It has a more refined aesthetic than that, more like a Powell and Pressburger classic. We notice the clever orchestral chiaroscuro and introduction of novelties like the marimba and sleigh bells because we know this music so well, but it's not only the new colours we notice, but the amazing musical ideas and structures underneath. Those are all Handel, lit up by Sir Andrew.

Moche joye and blysse

The music on this new Blue Heron disc is what one might have heard as Christmas approached in an English church in the 1440s. Things have changed a bit since then: they hadn’t heard of Kickstarter yet for one, though something of the same sort helped finance building the cathedrals, if I got Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth mini-series right (I wasn’t really paying attention). But this beautiful music must have impressed the English peasant at least as much as it did me. The music fills one with awe and wonder. One of the cool things, though, is that some of the carols are sung to actual English words.  Here is a stanza from Angelus ad virginem, whose lyrics were a 13th century English translation of the original Latin:

Gabriel, fram Heven-King
Sent to the maid sweet,
Broute his blissful tiding
And fair he gan hit greet:
- Heil be the, flu of grace aright!
For Godes Son, this Heven-Light,
For manned love will man bicome and take
Fles of thee, Maide bright,
Manken free for to make
Of sen and delves might.

The odd phrasing and bits of Latin left in Middle English adds extra charm to these songs. There is so much scholarship behind these performances. Even the harp Scott Heron plays in a number of pieces is based on instruments in museums, and paintings like this one by Hans Memling.

But this scholarship is worn very lightly, and is never allowed to intrude on the musicianship or the obvious pleasure the group takes in this music. This live album is perhaps a bit of a break for the group following their major Peterhouse Partbook project, and before their upcoming Ockeghem@600 project. It’s a perfect hour of celebration and wonder for all of us during the Christmas season.

A Golden Disc

From October 3, 2015:

This is the first disc from a fine new choir, Cappella SF, led by Ragnar Bohlin, Director of the San Francisco Symphony Chorus. The program chosen is, I think, the best kind for a Christmas CD: a mixture of old favourites and unfamiliar pieces or arrangements. As well, there’s a variety of musical textures, a mix of soloists and featured parts, and the important contribution of harp and organ on some of the tracks. Most importantly, the singing is of a very high standard. The title track, Eric Whitacre’s Lux Aurumque, calls for “absolute vocal clarity and pinpoint accuracy of intonation,” as Lindsay Koob writes in her excellent liner notes. Bohlin and his singers deliver just that. Though I’ve always preferred the pure sound of an alto in the Britten carols, soprano soloist Alexandra Sessler is very impressive in Balulalow. Of the less familiar carols on the disc, I especially enjoyed Fredrik Sixten’s simple but profound The Song of the Star, and the very beautiful Jul, Jul, Stralande Jul, by Gustaf Nordqvist. The disc ends with Barlow Bradford’s great arrangement of my favourite, and what I think is the best, of all the secular Christmas songs, Hugh Martin’s Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

A top-tier Christmas choral CD

February 1, 2015:

A postal snafu delayed this disc, so I didn’t get to hear it until the New Year. This gives me the chance to listen to the music more objectively, without being under the influence of candy canes and eggnog. The verdict: this is a very, very good choir. Noel Edison leads the Elora Festival Singers, whose members represent the core of the superb Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, in new versions of old favourites as well as some of the standard arrangements we know from BBC Radio 3’s Christmas Eve broadcast of the Festival of Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge. This Naxos disc represents the highest tier of Christmas choral discs. A number of songs feature important organ parts, which Michael Bloss handles with aplomb. An excellent example is the arrangement of The Holly and the Ivy by Stuart Thompson which won The Times carol competition in 2011. The program provides diversity in period, mood and texture. It’s traditional without being cliched.

I often comment on the excellent sound that Norbert Kraft and Bonnie Silver provide to Naxos instrumental, chamber and choral CDs through their production, engineering and editing, and it’s nice to see other reviews mentioning their contribution. Great sound begins with the choice of venue from amongst the best-sounding churches in the Greater Toronto area. St. John’s Church in the village of Elora, home of the Elora Festival since 1980, provides home field advantage for Noel Edison and his choir, and it’s evident that these voices sound their best in this space. This disc is very highly recommended. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Yuletide Tradition and Novelty

From October 30, 2014:

The new BIS album from the excellent New York Polyphony includes a few old standbys; we all love the traditional at Christmastime. But as the classical Christmas CDs pile up, most of us look for something new as well, and this album delivers that.

The group - counter-tenor, tenor, baritone and bass - sings no less than four different versions of There is No Rose. The first is fairly well known; we've been singing it since the 15th Century. John Scott wrote a new version especially for New York Polyphony, and in between the group also sings Geoffrey Williams' adaptation, based on Samuel Sebastian Wesley's Hereford hymn.

The final There is No Rose is one of the Five Carols of utility-infield composer Richard Rodney Bennett. The four male voices are here joined by two sopranos, which brings welcome tonal variety to the program. The sopranos also sing on my favourite track on this album: Peter Warlock's Bethlehem Down. I've somehow managed to never take notice of this Anglican anthem in years and years of Christmases, though it seems to be a beloved standard in the UK. Based on a lovely poem by Bruce Blunt, this touching and sad piece ties the Nativity with the future Good Friday. Warlock and Blunt entered the piece in a newspaper Christmas Carol contest, and their winnings paid for their Christmas booze. The composer termed it "an immortal carouse." I'll be listening to this CD at Christmas while downing my own vintage port or single malt scotch.