Notable CDs

Baptiste Pawlik is a 32-year-old German violinist whose way with his instrument bespeaks a winsome cultural awareness and ecumenism at one with the stylistic flexibility of his supporting orchestra. His taste in Christmas music skews toward pop, but it does so with a virtuosity that renders his transitions to the sacred (“Silent Night,” “O Holy Night”) every bit as lyrical as they are seamless. And speaking of lyrical, Pawlik’s violin “sings.” Only on the too-cute-by-half “Santa Baby” is that blessing a curse.

Swinging Christmas

Score another 2015 Christmas-music bull’s-eye for the Germans. Based in Berlin, The Capital Dance Orchestra is an old-fashioned big band that wears its retro elegance and WWII–Cold War taste in made-in-America material well. And its female vocalist, Meta Hüper, enunciates the English of her four English songs—one of which is the too-seldom-heard “Roses in December”—like a native speaker. The orchestra’s male vocalist, the show-tune veteran Simon Marlow, does too. But then he has an excuse: He’s British.

“River,” “White Christmas”

Jen and Rob Slocumb, whose band moniker was inspired by Luke 10, are no strangers to Christmas. They released the six-track Christmas Lights in 2002 and the eight-track This Christmas in 2008. Both tacked sacred. This year the Slocumbs have released two singles. And if the faithfully rendered Joni Mitchell cover (“River”) merely honors the duo’s folk-pop tastes, “White Christmas” extends them. The new melody gives fresh life not only to the song but also to the cliché “like hearing it for the first time.”

Adore: Christmas Songs of Worship

The title cut, a Tomlin original, can make you cry, so beautiful, heartfelt, and moving is its execution. Indeed, it overshadows the modernized “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” that immediately follows, whose beauty and heartfelt capacity to move would be the highlight of many another contemporary Christmas project. Lauren Daigle, Kristyn Getty, and All Sons & Daughters make cameos, but, like Tomlin himself, they blend into the proceedings, leaving the focus on the Bethlehem event itself. The in-concert-authenticating applause detracts only a tad.

Spotlight

In the 50 years since its debut, A Charlie Brown Christmas has exerted a spiritually salutary influence on the American Christmas experience. And, in light of the warm reception greeting The Peanuts Movie, this year seems to be no exception. The Peanuts Movie: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Epic) comprises mainly Christophe Beck’s soundtracky orchestral incidental music, but it also includes new and Vince Guaraldi Trio versions of the Charlie Brown Christmas staples “Linus and Lucy,” “Christmas Time Is Here,” and “Skating.” Among such company, the Meghan Trainor and Flo Rida ringers are forgivable.

The even better news is that Fantasy and Varèse Sarabande have released Peanuts Greatest Hits and Rod McKuen’s A Boy Named Charlie Brown respectively. The latter offers no Christmas moments, but it captures Charlie Brown’s endearing Everyman qualities. The former reprises not only Christmas moments but also the uniquely Everyseason delights that the Guaraldi Trio, under Charlie Brown’s sway, was eminently capable of producing. —A.O.