From the Carol Symphony

‘Tis the season for Christmas music. We all know the Christmas warhorses such as Georg Handel’s The Messiah, J.S. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and Pytor Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Maybe some of us are also familiar with music that is winter-themed, such as Antonio Vivaldi’s “Winter” from The Four Seasons and Sergei Prokofiev’s “Troika” from his Lieutenant Kijé Suite.

Further down the list of classical Christmas music are rarely sung masterpieces such as Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols, Camille Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël, Hector Berlioz’s L’Enfance du Christ, and Hodie by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

I’d say that anyone who has listened to Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël has started down the classical Christmas rabbit hole. Now, let’s go a bit further down. A Symphony of Carols by Victor Hely-Hutchinson might be the most idiomatic English Christmas music of all time. Written in 1927, this symphony includes traditional English Carols such as “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” “God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen,” “The Coventry Carol,” “The First Nowell,” and “Here We Come A-wassailing.” If you like Christmas music the way I like Christmas music, which is to say with the fervor of a soul freshly converted to a new sect, then this is a must-listen for your personal Christmas extravaganza.

Tchaikovsky wrote a piece for piano based on the seasons. Each piece represents a month of the year. For the December section, he composed a short waltz with the subtitle “Christmas.” It has since become known as “The Christmas Waltz. It’s not The Nutcracker, but it is charming in this orchestrated version.

Edward Elgar is not a name we associate with Christmas music, but his “A Christmas Greeting” is an exquisite holiday chestnut. The text of the song was written by Elgar’s wife Caroline Alice Elgar. For those of us living our lives outside of the Edwardian Age, that text may be difficult to digest. She dedicates two stanzas to Rome, mentioning Pifferari and the Old Tiber. The references could have been due to Elgar’s Roman Catholicism. But the song is delicate and quite English in its tone and texture.

I cannot think of a less likely fan of Christmas music than Arnold Schoenberg, but the fact of the matter is that the atonal Jewish master was dedicated to Christmas music. How dedicated? He wrote a lovely and tonal version of Praetorius’s “Es ist ein Ros’ Entsprugen” which weaves in “Stille Nacht” as a counter melody. Christmas miracles never cease to amaze.