# Christmas vocal music I can't find



## helorime (Dec 15, 2009)

Every year I face the same problem. I love traditional vocal Christmas music. I do not love huge bombastic choirs, I do not love pop-singers singing Christmas music. I do not love Opera greats singing Christmas music.

I ALMOST love the Anonymous Four singing Christmas music, but I miss male voices, and after a while the unending high pitches wear on me.

A couple of years ago I was in a shopping mall near Cleveland and a quartet of singers... perhaps from the opera chorus? in costume strolled around singing carols, with simple beautiful harmonies and no heavy vibratos or other operatic affectations. It was so beautiful that tears came to my eyes.

My parents had an ancient record of a group of 8 voices singing traditional carols. It is so damaged and scratched now that it is impossible to listen to, but it was beautiful.

So, all of you out there, where is the music I want? Quink almost is what I want, but too few of the songs I want, Christmas with the Tallis Scholars is good... their Lully Lula is perfect, but again, few of the songs that I want.

So, Help? Small vocal group? 4 or 8 pure and simple voices in gorgeous harmony? Not all Men nor all women? Traditional Christmas songs?


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2009)

I don't know if it is what you are looking for, but I enjoy my older copy of "A Festival of Carols" by Robert Shaw with the Robert Shaw Chorale & Orchestra. I have it on RCA Gold Seal, but it is a bit dated now.

I also have an album on the Decca label called "A Christmas Nativity" that is a collection of various artists (Joan Sutherland, Musica Sacra, David Wilcocks and the Choir of King's College Cambridge, etc.) that I really enjoy.


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## helorime (Dec 15, 2009)

Thanks for the suggestions! I like the Kings College choir, particularly in the chapel at Kings college, but in terms of Christmas music to just play for enjoyment, even they get too bombastic for me in a recording, the Shaw chorale and orchestra too. I am hunting for that elusive small, very small group. Maybe it is from having played in a string quartet through college many moon ago, but I love the intimacy and purity of harmony in small chamber groups. If I am sitting in my office, or reading at home I want that intimate sound more often than not.

In general I don't want either a diva or a whole chorus. I have Dale Warland "December Stillness" and like it a lot, I play it randomly all winter, since it doesn't scream Christmas to me. Yet I don't really like the group's traditional Christmas music... it drifts into bombast whereas December Stillness is more intimate sounding to me.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Is Rutter bombastic for you? He did recordings with The Cambridge Singers which I don't remember sounding bombastic.


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## helorime (Dec 15, 2009)

They're ok. What I really want is a quartet or octet of mixed voices though.


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