# Open pile-on invite: Post your favorite carols by classical voices



## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

I'll start with "Adeste fideles" from 1915 with John McCormack, ably seconded by American baritone Reinald Werrenrath. McCormack sings the first verse "straight", and then in the second verse he is joined by Werrenrath and they both go for Baroque. Who else was singing so HIP-ly --and so well-- over a century ago?



Spoiler: Adeste fideles - John McCormack + Reinald Werrenrath, 1915











Werrenrath was at this time a Victor "house baritone", doing hundreds of records on the Victor black label. Here he doesn't get label credit, but the Victor recording log tells all. Eventually he became a "Red Label Artist" in his own right. For more on him (with clips) see his entry in Will Crutchfield's estimable "Record of the Week" sub-blog on the Opera Nuova site:









— Teatro Nuovo


58 - Even Bravest Heart May Swell Reinald Werrenrath




www.teatronuovo.org


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A sentimental favorite I had on LP in the '60s.


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## nina foresti (Mar 11, 2014)

Cantique de Noel with Jussi Bjorling (done in Swedish)
Ave Maria with Mario Lanza


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> A sentimental favorite I had on LP in the '60s.


This is maybe my very favorite and from a Firestone XMAS album we had as a youth. I would LOVE to do a contest with her against others but she is the only one to sing it as an opera singer. You show exceptionally good taste!!!


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Sutherland's O Holy Night with the most spectacular high note in the history of Xmas recordings. I also love Ponselle singing Ave Maria.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Cantique de Noël (Minuit Chrétiens) - O Holy Night - Georges Thill


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Mille cherubini in core - Luciano Pavarotti


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

This is not a carol, but a hymn (Hymn of the Cherubim) by Tchaikovsky, which I discovered when looking for music for my mother’s Memorial Service earlier this year. It is so beautiful - voices raised in commemoration of the Divine.


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Sutherland's O Holy Night with the most spectacular high note in the history of Xmas recordings....


This one?






from her 1965 Christmas album -









Joan Sutherland, New Philharmonia Orchestra Conducted By Richard Bonynge - Joy To The World


View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1965 Vinyl release of "Joy To The World" on Discogs.




www.discogs.com


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

nina foresti said:


> Cantique de Noel with Jussi Bjorling (done in Swedish)


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


> ... I also love Ponselle singing Ave Maria.


Which one? she did several (including from Otello!!)


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

nina foresti said:


> ... Ave Maria with Mario Lanza


Schubert or Bach-Gounod?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Must haves.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

ewilkros said:


> Schubert or Bach-Gounod?


Both but a slight preference for the Schubert. As my best friend says about it... A real Catholic is singing that!!


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Both but a slight preference for the Schubert. As my best friend says about it... A real Catholic is singing that!!


Schubert - Ave Maria - Ponselle 1952 (I think this is from the fundraising LP she did for the Baltimore Civic Opera) -






Bach-Gounod - Ave Maria - Ponselle 1926, stereo-ized but not badly -


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)

*Enrico Caruso : Cantique de Noel (O Holy Night) 23rd Feb 1916*


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

ewilkros said:


> This one?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I prefer the one by Leontyne Price with Karajan conducting the Vienna Phil. Sutherland's diction it at its worst here.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

I've always liked this off Jessye Norman's Sacred Songs album.






You wouldn't expect Schwarzkopf to be associated with HIP, but this is apparently the original version of Gruber's _Stille Nacht _withe the same forces used at its first performance. You will nte that she slightly changes the vocal line from what we know now, but that too is in the original score.


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## ScottK (Dec 23, 2021)

I love this but am not always sure where love begins and ego ends...sang it in the church I grew up in at midnight mass and it was my italian tenor moment...in a baritone key  !!!


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Diana Damrau - Silent Night / Noche de paz / Douce Nuit / Stille Nacht


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

1. Ave Maria is not a Christmas song. It's a prayer to Mary. Not every single religious piece of music is connected to Christmas.

2. 




3. 




4. 




5. 




I have 28 hours of Christmas music in my collection, so I could do this all day lol


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

ewilkros said:


> I'll start with "Adeste fideles" from 1915 with John McCormack, ably seconded by American baritone Reinald Werrenrath. McCormack sings the first verse "straight", and then in the second verse he is joined by Werrenrath and they both go for Baroque. Who else was singing so HIP-ly --and so well-- over a century ago?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Everything on this Album:


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

PaulFranz said:


> 1. Ave Maria is not a Christmas song. *It's a prayer to Mary*. Not every single religious piece of music is connected to Christmas.


Gounod's version follows the prayer's text, Schubert's doesn't - It's based on a German translation made by Adam Storck of an excerpt from Sir Walter Scott's "The Lady of the Lake" -

Ave Maria! Jungfrau mild,
Erhöre einer Jungfrau Flehen,
Aus diesem Felsen starr und wild
Soll mein Gebet zu dir hinwehen.
Wir schlafen sicher bis zum Morgen,
Ob Menschen noch so grausam sind.
O Jungfrau, sieh der Jungfrau Sorgen,
O Mutter, hör ein bittend Kind!
Ave Maria! 

Ave Maria! maiden mild!
Listen to a maiden's prayer!
Thou canst hear though from the wild,
Thou canst save amid despair.
Safe may we sleep beneath thy care,
Though banish'd, outcast and reviled -
Maiden! hear a maiden's prayer;
Mother, hear a suppliant child!
Ave Maria! 





__





Ave Maria






www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

PaulFranz said:


> 4.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





Spoiler: Text: En etsi valtaa, loistoa (Jean Sibelius) - verses 1. 3












En etsi valtaa, loistoa (Jean Sibelius) - ChoralWiki







www.cpdl.org











Spoiler: Text: Varpunen jouluaamuna - verses 1, 2, 4









Jarkko Ahola - Varpunen jouluaamuna lyrics + English translation


Translation of 'Varpunen jouluaamuna' by Jarkko Ahola from Finnish t




lyricstranslate.com








"comber of a lake" = lake's wave
For the Finnish, "click to see the original lyrics" above black box


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Shaughnessy said:


> Schubert's doesn't - It's based on a German translation made by Adam Storck of an excerpt from Sir Walter Scott's "The Lady of the Lake" -
> 
> 
> 
> ...


"Schubert (ad[apted])" then. This is common practice - somewhere there's Ponselle doing Ave Maria made to fit onto the _Cavalleria Rusticana_ Intermezzo, I believe; and I know there's an Agnus Dei made to fit something from Bizet's _L'Arlesienne._


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## PaulFranz (May 7, 2019)

Shaughnessy said:


> Gounod's version follows the prayer's text, Schubert's doesn't - It's based on a German translation made by Adam Storck of an excerpt from Sir Walter Scott's "The Lady of the Lake" -
> 
> Ave Maria! Jungfrau mild,
> Erhöre einer Jungfrau Flehen,
> ...


They're both prayers to Mary and thus irrelevant to Christmas.


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

"Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow", traditional, transcribed Nathaniel Dett; Dorothy Maynor and male chorus, unaccompanied, from a 1942 RCA 78 album of spirituals which I don't think RCA has re-issued since a Camden LP of 1957, more's the pity. So much better this way than with some lush orchestral arrangement!


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## IgorS (Jan 7, 2018)




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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Mariä Wiegenlied [Mary's Lullabye] - Max Reger, Op. 76 ("Schlichte Weisen") no. 52 (1911-2), _*x 2 (von Otter and Muzio)*_:

1. Anne Sophie von Otter (1999)







Maria sitzt im Rosenhag
Und wiegt ihr Jesuskind,
Durch die Blätter leise
Weht der warme Sommerwind.

Zu ihren Füßen singt
Ein buntes Vögelein:
Schlaf, Kindlein, süße,
Schlaf nun ein!

Hold ist dein Lächeln,
Holder deines Schlummers Lust,
Leg dein müdes Köpfchen
Fest an deiner Mutter Brust!
Schlaf, Kindlein, süße,
Schlaf nun ein! 

* * * * *
Mary sits in a bower of roses
and rocks Jesus, her child.
Through the leaves softly 
blows the warm summer wind.

At her feet sings
a colorful little bird:
Sleep, child, my sweet,
go, go to sleep!

Fair is your smile,
fairer still your joy in sleep,
lay your tired little head
snug on your mother's breast!
Sleep, child, my sweet,
go, go to sleep!

* * * * *

2. In Italian, by Claudia Muzio, 1935, as "La ninna-nanna della Vergine":





D' accanto ai gigli in fior la Vergin
culla il suo bambin;
delle fronde il vel leggier
fa ondeggiar il venticel;
e fra le fronde chiar canta l'usignuol così:
"Dormi, e sogna, sogna amor.

"Dolce è tuo sorriso,
tutta spira gioia e amor;
La mammina veglia ognor,
china il capo sul suo cor!
Dormi, e sogna, sogna amor."

Beside lilies in bloom the Virgin
cradles her baby;
through the light veil of the foliage [above]
the little breeze sets the shadows moving;
and from amidst the leaves the nightingale sings clearly, so:
"Sleep and dream, dream of love.

"Sweet is your smile,
all filled with joy and love;
your mamma watches over you always,
lay your head aginast her heart!
Sleep and dream, dream of love."


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

*The Ethel Merman Christmas Collection*

It's a 5:43 minute long parody of "Old Yeller" and I would be willing to stake my reputation on the sheer "watch-ability" of this one if I indeed did have a reputation worth staking, which, quite frankly I don't, so you'll have to just trust me on this one..."Silent Night" at the beginning and "O Holy Night" at the 4:25 mark are worth the price of admission.

Nollaig shona dhaoibh!


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## PeterKC (Dec 30, 2016)

A very good man, a fine composer, and I'm happy to say a friend, Harri Wessman, composed this song that is now famous throughout the world. Not specifically Christmas, but certainly of the season. Makes your heart grow.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

PaulFranz said:


> They're both prayers to Mary and thus irrelevant to Christmas.


Ave Maria may have started out unconnected to Christmas, but it makes some sense that it has become associated with it. The text includes the archangel Gabriel's greeting to Mary at the Annunciation, and Elizabeth's praise of Mary and her child. Those are obviously connected with the birth of Jesus and part of the nativity narrative in general so I can see why people, especially Catholics, would associate them, though of course one doesn't have to if one doesn't want to. 

Some songs:
Gladys Swarthout - I Wonder as I Wander - YouTube 

Dorothy Maynor: Go tell it on the mountain - YouTube


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Ave Maria may have started out unconnected to Christmas, but it makes some sense that it has become associated with it. The text includes the archangel Gabriel's greeting to Mary at the Annunciation, and Elizabeth's praise of Mary and her child. Those are obviously connected with the birth of Jesus and part of the nativity narrative in general so I can see why people, *especially Catholics*, would associate them, though of course one doesn't have to if one doesn't want to.
> 
> Some songs:
> Gladys Swarthout - I Wonder as I Wander - YouTube
> ...


It's been played on each Sunday during Advent in both Ireland and at Holy Name Cathedral here in Chicago for as long as I can remember.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Regensburger Domspatzen




Kerstin Bruns, Ursula Eittinger




Woodduck said:


> A *sentimental favorite* I had on LP in the '60s.


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Can't forget the ever versatile, (in this case) completely hilarious Dorothy Kirsten. I'm amazed she can go from this to Minnie, but on the other hand I do hear a bit of Minnie in this.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

vivalagentenuova said:


> Can't forget the ever versatile, (in this case) completely hilarious Dorothy Kirsten. I'm amazed she can go from this to Minnie, but on the other hand I do hear a bit of Minnie in this.


Your kidding!!!!!!! Wow.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

My favorite is Fred Waring's Nutcracker Suite set to words with a Walt Disney sounding chorus. The words are really really clever. Classical music has never been such fun.




I also love his choral Ring Them Christmas Bells which is so fun and joyous;


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## brpaulandrew (Sep 30, 2011)

The great Jessye Norman singing "O Come, O Come, Immanuel".
Quite (pp) beginning of the video.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

brpaulandrew said:


> The great Jessye Norman singing "O Come, O Come, Immanuel".
> Quite (pp) beginning of the video.


So rich and glorious. I also love Jessye's Carol written for her.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

One by one very fine recordings .


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I prefer the one by Leontyne Price with Karajan conducting the Vienna Phil. Sutherland's diction it at its worst here.


I don't need to know what Sutherland is saying because I know what the words are from church I just just enjoy hearing her sing it like it was In Questa Reggia LOL. I have backed up and played the end of that 25 times to hear that spectacular Db which you can hear her shooting it out of the top of her head, likely the greatest high note in the history of Xmas music, which you would NEVER do because you have to view it as a complete piece. We are so different. You want the meaning and artistry and I want the vocal fireworks because I am not as evolved as you But we both have our place in this fun forum Merry Xmas in the city of the Christmas Carol !


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I don't need to know what Sutherland is saying because I know what the words are from church I just just enjoy hearing her sing it like it was In Questa Reggia LOL. I have backed up and played the end of that 25 times to hear that spectacular Db which you can hear her shooting it out of the top of her head, likely the greatest high note in the history of Xmas music, which you would NEVER do because you have to view it as a complete piece. We are so different. You want the meaning and artistry and I want the vocal fireworks because I am not as evolved as you But we both have our place in this fun forum Merry Xmas in the city of the Christmas Carol !


I do actually have her Christmas album and I agree it’s great fun. I did think it funny though when my partner asked me quite innocently what language she was singing in. It was “It came upon the midnight clear” and he said he only knew the English words. He was completely dumbfounded when I told him she was actually singing it in English. Haha


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I do actually have her Christmas album and I agree it’s great fun. I did think it funny though when my partner asked me quite innocently what language she was singing in. It was “It came upon the midnight clear” and he said he only knew the English words. He was completely dumbfounded when I told him she was actually singing it in English. Haha


Hilarious. I have a question for you. We know Callas is great with words but it is very difficult for sopranos to enunciate clearly singing up high. How does Callas do in your opinion? I don't know the continental languages well enough to make a judgement.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Seattleoperafan said:


> Hilarious. I have a question for you. We know Callas is great with words but it is very difficult for sopranos to enunciate clearly singing up high. How does Callas do in your opinion? I don't know the continental languages well enough to make a judgement.


She does as well as any, but of course like most singers when they get to the upper reaches, verbal clairty can be sacrificed. However I have often noted that she is one of the few singers who sings the words _Gil enigmi sono tre la morte e una _at the climax of _In questa reggia_. Almost all singers just suggest the consonants and the famous Dame Eva Turner doesn't even attempt them and sings the line on Ah!


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## vivalagentenuova (Jun 11, 2019)

Just stumbled across this. Very cool!


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## Shaughnessy (Dec 31, 2020)

Angela Gheorghiu - Guardian Angel - Christmas Carols

Link to complete album -



https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_nXtg7QvxPy-pbENA6j8HhWeAxf3QApzDE


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> Kerstin Bruns, Ursula Eittinger


Heiligste Nacht.
Finsternis weichet, es glänzet hienieden.
Harfen verbreiten den süssesten Klang.
Engel erscheinen, verkünden den Frieden,
lieblich ertönet ihr froher Gesang.
Christen, erwachet und kommet geschwind,
folget den Hirten, die eifriger sind,
eilet nach Bethlehem,
seht euer Diadem,
hier liegt das Kind.

Holiest Night.
Darkness gives way, it shines down here.
Harps spread the sweetest sound.
Angels appear proclaiming peace
her happy song sounds lovely.
Christians, wake up and come quickly,
follow the shepherds who are more zealous
hurry to Bethlehem,
see your tiara
here lies the child.


Merry Christmas, btw.


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

(I miss "There never has been such a day/In Beverly Hills, L.A.", though)


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Kirsten Flagstad (Waldemar Alme, piano), 9/9/1954






Michael Head (lyrics Hayley Westenra):
*"The Little Road To Bethlehem"*

As I walked down the road at set of sun
The lambs were coming homeward one by one;
I heard a sheepbell softly calling them
Along the little road to Bethlehem

Beside an open door as I drew nigh
I heard sweet Mary sing a lullaby;
She sang about the lambs at close of day
And rocked her tiny Boy among the hay

Across the air the silver sheepbells rang;
"The lambs are coming home," sweet Mary sang,
"Your star of gold, your star of
Gold is shining in the sky
So sleep, my little Boy, go lullaby."

As I walked down the road at set of sun
The lambs were coming homeward one by one
I heard a sheepbell softly calling them
Along the little road to Bethlehem


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Marian Anderson, William Primrose (viola), Franz Rupp (Piano) - Brahms: Geistliches Wiegenlied, "Die Ihr schwebet" (from 7:24)











Die ihr schwebet | LiederNet


Texts and Translations to Lieder and other classical vocal works in more than a hundred languages




www.lieder.net


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)




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