The Christmas Wish

Herb Alpert

This 15-track holiday smorgasbord isn’t so much a throwback to the easy-listening Christmas collections of yore as it is an apotheosis of that now all-but-extinct genre. As one would expect, trumpet gilds the melodies, but essentially Alpert and the co-billed symphony and choir sparkle as one, creating a cockles-warming mood that not even the perennially silly “Santa Baby” can deflate. Deflating the silliness is a quietly majestic arrangement of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” that brings the festivity to a close.

Joe Feeney Sings For Heaven’s Sake

Joe Feeney

Other than the fact that this album has now turned 50, it’s hard to imagine why the suits at RCA/Legacy have rereleased it. Are Lawrence Welk regulars suddenly all the rage? Will the Lennon Sisters be next? Whatever, hearing Feeney sing anything for 34 minutes is wonderful, hearing him sing to and about his Savior even more so. Although one detects operatic ability, Feeney kept his golden tenor within the limits of common-man taste. It was a rare gift. And now it keeps on giving.

Abide With Me

Sara Groves

Groves has a gently expressive voice that’s perfect for understating eternal truths. On this collection of hymns (including a new recording of Groves’ “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”–based “He’s Always Been Faithful”), her singing is matched by accompanists of equally gentle expressiveness. The arrangements, while inventive in their way, leave the well-known melodies more or less untouched—more untouched in the cases of “Fairest Lord Jesus” and “Praise to the Lord,” less in the case of “Lead On, O King Eternal,” which benefits from the inventiveness.

Warmer In The Winter

Lindsey Stirling

Whether she’s humble or simply a millennial with wide-open ears, Stirling continues to imbed her piercingly sweet violin in the electronic flourishes of contemporary pop and the occasional spotlight-deflecting guest vocalist. When the material is familiar enough to require something fresh (“Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy”), the flourishes make sense, as do the guest vocals on material that would seem silly without words (“You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch”). Still, it would be nice to encounter this one-woman Contemporary Mormon Music ambassador gimmick-free.

ENCORE

Winter Songs (Decca), the new Christmas-album-in-all-but-name by the composer Ola Gjeilo, layers seasonal texture upon seasonal texture until a lustrous whole—somewhere between classical and pop, sacred and secular—emerges. The carols include “The Holly & the Ivy,” “The First Nowell,” “Away in a Manger,” and “Silent Night,” uniquely arranged for the luminous a cappella voices of the University of London’s Choir of Royal Holloway. The original instrumentals “Home,” “First Snow,” and “Dawn” (featuring Gjeilo on piano accompanied by the string orchestra 12 Ensemble) form lovely segues.

Were there nothing more than carols and instrumentals, Winter Songs would be pleasant but predictable. That it also contains settings of poems by Christina Rosetti and Emily Brontë makes it considerably more. The texts aren’t particularly Christmasy (unless Brontë’s reference to “seek[ing] the consecrated spot / Beloved in childhood’s years” counts), but they supply an emotional counterpoint entirely consonant with the hopes and fears of all the years. —A.O.