A Jewish writer’s favorite Christmas music
Christmas music is kind of like Christmas food. Everyone has their favorites; without those favorites it doesn’t actually feel like Christmas; and for every person who loves a specific treat, that same thing probably gives another person indigestion.
In my years on the beat, I’ve documented the avalanche of holiday music that crashes the airwaves each year starting on Black Friday. I’ve written about the Jewish songwriters who helped create the sound of American Christmas, and I poured out my appreciation for Judy Garland’s wistful performance of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” during the lonely coronavirus Christmas of 2020. But until now, I haven’t dedicated space to the tunes I personally reach for when I’m feeling festive. My family didn’t celebrate Christmas when I was growing up, but I absorbed a delightful if unconventional mix of holiday music by osmosis.
This doesn’t cover all of my holiday listening — many pages have deservedly been written about Duke Ellington’s swinging arrangements of music from Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” and Vince Guaraldi’s unforgettable soundtrack for “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” Here’s some love for the lesser-known tracks on my wintry mix.
Maddy Prior and the Carnival Band — “A Tapestry of Carols”
When Steeleye Span frontwoman Maddy Prior hitched her wagon to the English early music outfit the Carnival Band, the first fruit was 1987’s “A Tapestry of Carols,” a lively bunch of traditional carols from the British Isles and western Europe. As soon as the calendar flipped to December each year, I would always hear my father singing these tunes around the house, and thanks to that, a droning bagpipe and rollicking drum will always sound somewhat like Christmas. “It’s all streamers, balloons, and lunacy,” Prior once said to the BBC about the band’s holiday concerts. Look up “Monsieur Charpentier’s Christmas Swing” on YouTube for an extra dose of madness.
Kerfuffle — “Lighten the Dark: A Midwinter Album”
English folk quartet Kerfuffle’s parting gift to the world before its 2010 breakup was this album, which begins with “I Saw Three Ships” in 5/4 meter and concludes with “The Bitter Withy,” a folk ballad in which the child Jesus exacts surprisingly violent revenge on a gang of mean rich kids. In between, there’s dance tunes, carols, lullabies, and wassail music — all finely arranged for fiddles, squeezeboxes, guitars and voices.
Anonymous 4 — “On Yoolis Night”
A cappella quartet Anonymous 4 released dozens of albums in its three decades performing as a group, and one of the loveliest remains “On Yoolis Night,” from 1993. The repertoire seems like it could have been tailor-made for their immaculate but unfussy style. Listen for carols in Middle English, flowing chants in Latin, and motets that might make you wonder why anyone ever started writing music that only had one set of lyrics.
Stile Antico — “A Wondrous Mystery”
It’s pretty much guaranteed that if an a cappella vocal ensemble rises to any sort of prominence, they’re going to make a Christmas album sooner or later. Stile Antico is one of the finest ensembles singing Renaissance repertoire today, and the best of its handful of holiday albums is 2015’s “A Wondrous Mystery,” which pairs a Flemish Christmas mass with carols and motets from Germany and the surrounding lands. If your favorite recent video game was “Pentiment,” you owe yourself a listen to this record.
Lise Davidsen — “Christmas from Norway”
Operatic A-listers releasing holiday albums is a long and storied tradition, and what’s out there ranges from the wonderfully extravagant (Jessye Norman’s “Christmastide”) to the truly inexplicable (Jonas Kaufmann’s rendition of “All I Want for Christmas is You”). This year, Opera Santa graces the world with a Christmas disc from Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen. She includes a handful of well-known tunes, but this disc’s real draw is the luminescent and understatedly cozy Nordic Yuletide songs like “Deilig er jorden” (Beautiful is the Earth). I can’t even dock points for her use of a children’s choir.
The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge — “A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols”
You can find recordings of past years’ Nine Lessons and Carols services online, but the best way to experience this is to tune in on Christmas Eve to any of the radio stations broadcasting live from the King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, England. It always starts with a lone chorister (chosen moments before the start of the service) singing the first verse of “Once in Royal David’s City,” and in the moments between the hush of the crowd and the first notes of melody, the sense of collective anticipation and joy makes the air vibrate. Throughout my adult life, Christmas Day has been for movies and eating Chinese food; Christmas Eve for Lessons and Carols.
Seeking recommendations . . .
“Where’s the Hanukkah music?,” I hear some of you asking. Here’s the truth — when I want to party on Hanukkah, it’s got to be klezmer, and it’s got to be live. That said, if you have recommendations for recordings for the Festival of Lights, I’m all ears. Unlike Christmas music, klezmer rarely feels out of season.