# Musical Traditions around the Holidays



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Hello server! With Christmas just 4 days away, I wanted to have a thread to talk about any (classical music) traditions you have around the holidays. Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, all that. What music do you like to listen to most? What concerts do you go to as a tradition? This thread has been done in the past, I'm sure of it, so this is the 2018 version of the thread. 

My family listens to a lot of Scandinavian Christmas music every year. Advent is a big deal in Scandinavia, so they have a host of traditional hymns and carols before Christmas. Here's an album we listen to a lot:










Another album my family bought the last time we visited Finland, a Christmas album dedicated to music that Sibelius and his family would have enjoyed while at Ainola, their family home. It includes several Christmas songs he composed.










This carol by Sibelius is super famous in Finland, I wish others around the world would know about it too because it's so beautiful (and beautiful poetry too):






So what traditions do you have?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I don't listen to classical Christmas music at Christmas. Maybe because it's too obvious, or maybe because I'm the only one in my family who listens to classical. I know; I'm a terrible person.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

I have only one: it's the time of year to listen to Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel. I don't why how or why this beautiful opera became associated with Christmas other than it was this time of year that is was first performed. It really has more in line with Halloween. Cluytens or Karajan on EMI, Solti on Decca.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Chamber music parties are my favorite holiday season tradition. I have three on the schedule, but I may only do two. If enough players show up, we might play the 5th Brandenburg Concerto. Mozart, Reicha, Beethoven, Reger, Martinu, who knows what? Maybe some of Genin's Carnival of Venice variations.


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

We have a classical playlist of Christmas music (with a few pop tunes thrown in) that we always play on Christmas morning, more as background music throughout the day but also to just sit and listen. Our favorite is Bach's Christmas Oratorio on this album:








And of course being a brass player, this one of my personal favorites:








That album also contains some Christmas Oratorio arrangements for brass that are absolutely stunning.

And of course:








Nothing really unique in our playlist, just some good listening.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Gordontrek said:


> Nothing really unique in our playlist, just some good listening.


And nobody's grandma gets run over by a reindeer.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> This carol by Sibelius is super famous in Finland, I wish others around the world would know about it too because it's so beautiful (and beautiful poetry too):
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Called "Giv mig ej glans, ej guld, ej prakt" in Swedish. Lyrics by Zacharias Topelius famous for the series of historic novels called "Fältskärns berättelser".

Here sung in Swedish by Loa Falkman:


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## jim prideaux (May 30, 2013)

Prokofiev 1st.....because!


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

I listen to Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragments Op. 24, drink half a bottle of vodka, and smoke a cigarette. Merry Christmas.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

^^ Sounds fun but you'll be drinking fast to get through half a bottle during the Kafka Fragments alone. Perhaps the programme needs a couple more pieces? I'll have to skip the cigarette, though - its only a few months ago that I stopped.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> ^^ Sounds fun but you'll be drinking fast to get through half a bottle during the Kafka Fragments alone. Perhaps the programme needs a couple more pieces? I'll have to skip the cigarette, though - its only a few months ago that I stopped.


I have it on replay and pretend I am the doomed protagonist in a Bela Tarr film ... which is not that far from reality.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

It may well be a cliche, but I always listen to Hely-Hutchinson's 'A Carol Symphony'. I have the Naxos recording which is really excellent and has the bonus of also containing Bryan Kelly's excellent 'Improvisations on Christmas Carols' which I also really enjoy.
I try to listen to Vaughan-Williams' 'Hodie' but I really don't get along too well with it, so the rest of my listening is much more traditional with arrangements of the Wexford, Sussex and Coventry carols. Christmas is one of the few times that I listen to very old music.


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