Christmas favourites

[verismissimo]

I always listen with great pleasure to the first part (Nativity) of Liszt's Christus at this time of year.

Do you have special seasonal favourites?

[Serial_Apologist]

I always listen with great pleasure to the first part (Nativity) of Liszt's Christus at this time of year.

Do you have special seasonal favourites?

Honegger's Christmas Cantata
Vaughan Wiliams's Fantasia on Christmas Carols

[Il Grande Inquisitor]

Christmas essentials include:

Britten - A Ceremony of Carols
Vaughan Williams - Fantasia on Christmas Carols
Menotti - Amahl and the Night Visitors

I'm also fond of Hely-Hutchinson's Carol Symphony, not least because it reminds me of the wonderful, childhood tv series The Box of Delights.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Bach: Christmas Oratorio - one cantata a day to last the entire season.

[Anna]

Praetorius Mass on Christmas morning. But to be honest, all the corny stuff like Frosty the Snowman and The Pogues goes down very well!

[salymap]

Victor Hely-hutchinson's Carol Symphony
Vaughan Williams Fantasia on Christmas Carols.
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on Christmas Day
Nice to watch Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel if well done [on TV ]

[Mr Pee]

Finzi, In Terra Pax.

[Nick Armstrong]

I love Mathias's "Sir Christémas" - love the way it ends with the whole choir shouting "Noel!!"

[Pabmusic]

Gerald Finzi's 'In Terra Pax' - one of my Desert Island Discs.

[Chris Newman]

Like Anna, I love Praetorius's Christmas Mass.

Like salymap, somewhere over the Christmas Period I shall put on a DVD of Hansel und Gretel (I'll toss a coin to decide between the ROH or the Met or might just sing along with the famous old Sadler's Wells CD version); it really is the best Wagnerian opera that Wagner did not write.

I have put the latest BBCMM disc aside for Christmas. It will be nice to hear an early Menuhin performance of the Beethoven VC and RVW conducting his Dona Nobis Pacem (not Christmas music but great stuff).

[VodkaDilc]

Hodie - Vaughan Williams. Some wonderful moments, including the Prologue and The March of the Three Kings - the 80 year old composer at his most extrovert and vulgar!

[Norfolk Born]

...and here's another vote for the Finzi.

[verismissimo]

Menotti - Amahl and the Night Visitors.

I only discovered this very recently, IMI. It's a total delight. I had no idea how good it is.

Picked up what looks like a first edition LP of the original cast recording under Schippers. 49p from Oxfam!

[mangerton]

Much of the above - Caliban, haven't heard or sung Sir Christèmas for ages - thanks for reminding me. Like Anna, The Praetorius Christmas Mass is a must for me, as I may have mentioned before, closely followed by the same group's recording of Schütz's Christmas Vespers, including his Christmas Story. VW's Hodie and Fantasia on Christmas Carols. Britten's St Nicholas. Charpentier's Messe de Minuit. Bach's Christmas Oratorio, spaced as fhg suggests. Messiah - I'm listening to the Dunedin Consort at the moment.

For organ, I have a recordiing of Daquin's Nouveau livre de Noëls, and of course there's Gillian Weir's recording of Messiaen's La nativité du Seigneur.

[Nick Armstrong]

Gerald Finzi's 'In Terra Pax' - one of my Desert Island Discs.

I'm a Finzi fan, but I don't know this! I must remedy it in the next week! Whose version do I get?