Vince Guaraldi Archives

I love to listen to Christmas music throughout the season (including the 12 days of Christmas beginning with Christmas Day!). Over the years I’ve accumulated a nice collection of Christmas music. Here are some of my favorites, with links to Amazon if you want to learn more about or acquire a recording:

1. A Charlie Brown Christmas with Vince Guaraldi. Not only does it recall this wonderful Christmas special but listening to Guaraldi’s jazz piano with a hot cup of something by the Christmas tree on a cold winter’s night–it doesn’t get any better.

2. A Christmas Festival with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops. This is the classic pops performance of Christmas tunes that includes Leroy Anderson’s “Sleighride” that everyone else imitates!

3. Song of Angels: Christmas Humns and Carol: Robert Shaw Chamber Singers. This is a great collection if you love choral music. Shaw was among the very best and you find less common pieces like “My Dancing Day” and “The Cherry Tree Carol”.

4. More Shaw: The Many Moods of Christmas. Robert Russell Bennett arranged these four suites of familiar Christmas tunes for Robert Shaw, whose recordings are the gold standard.

5. Christmas Star: Carols for the Christmas Season: The Cambridge Singers and Orchestra dir. by John Rutter. This is a beautiful collection of carols in the British choral tradition. They were digitally recorded in 1981 and thought lost until discovered and released in 1997. It includes “Twas in the moon of winter time”, a French Canadian carol and “O Little One Sweet”, a German Carol.

6. Brass and Christmas just seem to go together. Christmas with London Brass includes all the favorites and more!

7. There are several individual artists whose Christmas albums are favorites. One of my favorites that I still listen to in vinyl is Joan Baez’ Noel. Her renderings of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Ave Maria” are riveting.

8. James Taylor at Christmas was originally released as a Hallmark Christmas CD and later re-released on Columbia with the additional song “River”. This was where I first heard David Grusin’s “Who Comes this Night”.

9. Tony Bennett: The Classic Christmas Album is just that. Nothing more need be said!

10. Finally, I think a good orchestral collection of Christmas music is a must. Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Greatest Christmas Hits fills the bill perfectly (although you may have to do some hunting to find it).

You might find these at a discount after Christmas–some I’ve picked up for $1 at second-hand stores. What are your favorite Christmas recordings?

With just a few days before Christmas and inspired by the recent TV version of Sound of Music I thought I’d share a few of my favorite things about Christmas.

1. Christmas trees. As I kid I would spend hours following the strings of lights and garland around the tree and stare at the artistry of the ornaments. Still do sometimes.

2. Christmas music. In fact one of the most delightful discoveries a few years ago was learning that the 12 Days of Christmas begin on Christmas Days and continue until January 6 and Christmas carols are appropriate all through this time, even if most of the radio stations stop on Christmas day.

3. Christmas eve services at our church, singing “Silent Night” as we light candles and turn out the lights. Not just a sentimental moment but the joy of looking on the faces of friends with whom I’ve spent the last 23 years of my life.

4. Gathering with Ben, Hannah, and Marilyn to bake pizzelles several weeks before Christmas and the smell of anise that lingers in the house for weeks.

5. The way the late afternoon sun shines on our nativity scene at this time of year.

6. Singing great Christmas music with Capriccio Columbus. This year we are performing a wonderful Magnificat and other pieces.

7. Remembering how our son would be up at 3 am in the morning pacing down the hall from his room to our living room to see if Santa had come.

8. Rolling over in bed, realizing we don’t have to get up early Christmas morning any more!

9. Watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and listening to the exquisite music of Vince Guaraldi, and wishing he had lived longer to create more of this.

10. Listening to the gospel stories of the birth of Christ and wondering at amazement that God would come into our world not as a conquering hero but a helpless baby to so identify with our life and condition.

Thanks to all of you who have followed the blog during these first months of figuring out how to do all this. I wish you all great joy this holiday!