The Christmas music that still unites us

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Friday, November 28th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Christmas albums to season your holidays. Despite perennial complaints about the commercialization of Christmas, there’s never a shortage of sacred Christmas recordings to right the balance.

Here’s WORLD music critic Arsenio Orteza.

ARSENIO ORTEZA: The December 1995 issue of the American Spectator featured the Mark Steyn article “It’s the Best Time of the Year.” Steyn wrote about what he called the “American Christmas.” He meant by that term an occasion whose popular songs were able to unify a country. “We don’t have popular culture anymore,” he wrote, “but, uniquely in today’s fragmented market, seasonal songs cross all boundaries.”

Thirty years later, the market is more fragmented than ever. But seasonal songs still cross boundaries. Steyn had in mind pop songs such as “White Christmas” and “Winter Wonderland,” but he could have just easily been thinking of Händel’s “Messiah.” It was originally composed as an Easter oratorio, but it’s become synonymous with Christmas.

MUSIC: “Messiah, Pt. I, No. 12, For unto Us a Child Is Born” by the Sixteen, Harry Christophers

This is a selection from Handel: Messiah Choruses by the vocal ensemble the Sixteen under the direction of Harry Christophers. The album is a condensed version of their complete 2008 Messiah recording. But they have a newly recorded seasonable album as well called The Wise Men and the Star. It’s an a cappella collection of what the back cover accurately calls “[m]uch-loved traditional carols…interspersed with inspirational modern classics and little-known treasures.”

MUSIC: “In the Bleak Midwinter” by the Sixteen, Harry Christophers

For listeners who like their Christmas carols a little less traditional, there’s Joy to the World by the Grammy-winning, 12-man choir Chanticleer and the conductor Tim Keeler. A good example of how they avoid making just another Christmas choral album is their arrangement of “Once in Royal David’s City.” For the first 40 seconds, it’s pretty much business as usual. Then some very interesting harmonies come into play.

MUSIC: “Once in Royal David’s City” by Chanticleer

The arrangement is a clear example of what Keeler means in his liner notes when he writes that “[t]he magic of Christmas lies in old meeting new….” It’s a motif that runs throughout the album, and not only where the arrangements are concerned. The 19th-century carol “Good King Wenceslas,” for instance, gets medleyed with the 20th-century Lorenz Hart pop song “Little Girl Blue.” That the two would make a good blend is hardly obvious, but, as performed by Chanticleer, the combination makes sense.

MUSIC: “Good King Wenceslas/Little Girl Blue” by Chanticleer

There’s a plethora of good choral Christmas recordings this year. For listeners without the time or money for more than one or two, the decision will come down to repertoire. But even that isn’t always enough. For instance, both the Sixteen’s The Wise Men and the Star and the St. Martin’s Voices’ A Babe Is Born: Music for Christmas contain the 15th-century English hymn “Adam Lay Ybounden.” The Sixteen’s version, performed to Boris Ord’s melody, sounds like this:

MUSIC: “Adam Lay Ybounden” by the Sixteen

St. Martin’s Voices, on the other hand, perform it to a melody composed by Vicente Chavarría, and it sounds like this:

MUSIC: “Adam Lay Ybounden” by St. Martin’s Voices

Same text, but melodically they’re two different songs. For fresh evidence supporting Steyn’s thesis, we can turn to the album Cuban Christmas by the Sarahbanda. The Sarahbanda numbers among its specialties imbuing classical pieces with Cuban dance rhythms such as salsa, bolero, and mambo. On Cuban Christmas, the type of border-crossing songs that Steyn had in mind get the treatment, beginning with the album’s opener.

MUSIC: “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” by the Sarahbanda

The centerpiece of the album is an eight-minute suite devoted to selections from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Before hearing an example of those, though, it’s good to remember that the first musicians to introduce new rhythms into Tchaikovsky’s ballet were the American jazz titans Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn.

MUSIC: “Peanut Brittle Brigade (March)” by Duke Ellington

The Sarahbanda’s Tchaikovsky interpretations are a kind of tribute to Ellington’s and Strayhorn’s. They are not, however, copies. The Cuban accents with which they imbue Tchaikovsky sound nothing like the American accents employed by the Duke.

MUSIC: “March (from the Cuban Nutcracker Suite)” by the Sarahbanda

One final album of note is The Southern Christmas Songbook & Hymnal by the Americana stalwarts Spooner Oldham, Oteil Burbridge, Billy Crain, Tammy Rogers, and Marco Giovino. It was my favorite Christmas album of 2016. But somehow I forgot to write about it that year, and, because it was no longer new, I’ve avoided writing about it ever since. Well, no more. An instrumental collection of 11 classic carols performed with energy yet reverence, it’s simply too good to ignore.

MUSIC: “We Three Kings” by Spooner Oldham, Oteil Burbridge, Billy Crain, Tammy Rogers, and Marco Giovino

I may be going out on a limb, but I think Mark Steyn would approve.

I’m Arsenio Orteza.

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