Read on to discover our 15 Christmas music essentials for classical music lovers....
Did you know that last year marked 50 years since Slade released ‘Merry Christmas Everybody’, instantly carving their own little place in our collective festive psyches? Half a century on, the song that singer Noddy Holder has referred to as his ‘pension scheme’ remains a mainstay on the radio and in shops, pubs and parties from the beginning of December onwards– so much so that some say Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas if it wasn’t there.
However, much as we at BBC Music enjoy joining Noddy and crew in a raucous sing-along about hanging stockings on the wall and fairies keeping Santa sober for a day, we crave more musical satisfaction at Christmas than just that. A lot more. So, what ear-tickling treats could we as classical music lovers not imagine the festive season without? Here are our 15 Christmas music essentials…
1. O come now...
Though the Advent season runs for around four weeks up to Christmas Eve, Advent music’s moment in the limelight tends to get squeezed into the space of just a few days. A shame, as the themes of darkness to light and the coming of Christ and have inspired some gems over the centuries – from the likes of Byrd’s Ecce virgo concipiet (1605) to James MacMillan’s contemporary Advent Antiphon – while big-boned hymns such as O come, O come, Emmanuel and Lo! He comes with clouds descending stir the soul like few others. So, set the season in motion by heading to an Advent carol service near you.
2. Get a Handel on it
Performances of the Messiah pop up all over the place over the festive period, from local choral societies to the world’s great orchestras and choirs. Don’t be the pedant who points out that only a third-or-so of Handel’s oratorio actually has anything to do with Christmas; do join in the enjoyment of ‘For unto us a child is born’, the Hallelujah chorus and all.
3. A bit of wrap music
At some point, you’ll probably need to sit down and wrap presents. By its very nature, this is a solitary occupation, so you can indulge yourself by listening to your own favourite Christmas playlist as you go. Some like to create a sense of ritual by playing exactly the same music every year which, depending on how many times you find yourself repeating it, has the added bonus of telling you whether you are getting slower or quicker at wrapping, or have bought too many or too few presents and so on.
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4. So sweet of you
Christmas trees, midnight battles with the Mouse King, waltzing flowers and a reindeer-drawn sleigh – what’s not to like? Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker continues to work its charms even on those of us who have racked up more decades than we like to admit. Best of all would be to immerse oneself in the magic of the Land of Sweets in a live show, though tickets, if you can get hold of them at all, rarely come ceap. So, an evening in front of a performance on screen or simply listening to the music it probably is, then. It’s still wonderful.
5. Merry organs
‘The playing of the merry organ, sweet singing in the choir’ goes the refrain in The Holly and the Ivy. We pretty much take singing for granted at Christmas but what about the organ? Heading into a cold, dark church or chapel in the depths of winter to practise can be a tough ask, so it’s only fair we repay the organists with some quality listening time. Hardcore enthusiasts like to plunge in to the mysteries and thrills of Messiaen’s nine-movement La Nativité du Seigneur, but there are smaller-scale marvels aplenty out there for those dipping just a toe into the festive organ water. For instance, JS Bach’s In dulci jubilo BWV 729 chorale prelude is a classic end-of-carol-service spirit lifter, while Brahms’s Es ist ein Ros entsprungen is the very model of reflective calm.
6. High and mighty
Talking of sweet singing in the choir, what would Christmas be without descants? Though they do occasionally crop up at other times of the year, it’s during carol services that we can most expect to hear these added top lines floating ethereally above the main tune in the final verse of a hymn. Quite often, clever-clogs choirmasters like to write their own new descants and then show them off on the big occasion, but one or two of the more established ones have become almost as familiar as the hymns they adorn. Probably the best known is David Willcocks’s for the ‘Sing, Choirs of Angels’ verse of O Come, All Ye Faithful. It’s so popular, in fact, that – especially at Midnight Mass after a few sherries – much of the congregation gives up chugging away along their allotted line and joins in with it instead, thus slightly defeating the whole purpose.
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7. Totally streetwise
Not all carol-singers are the same. Some are part of immaculately honed outfits who serenade passers-by on street corners with delightful four-part harmony. And at the other end of the spectrum, there are the rowdy mobs who head house-to-house belting out any old gumph in the hope of earning a few quid. To be fair, it’s the latter group who are probably closer to the tradition’s centuries-old origins, when groups of ‘wassailers’ headed out on Twelfth Night either to a local orchard or round town, getting steadily merrier on mulled cider. By all accounts, they were not very melodious.
8. Bah humbug!
As we reach the half-way stage in our list, let’s not forget to include those who thoroughly dislike Christmas music and make a point each year of saying so. They will almost certainly not be reading this feature, but if they are, we can only apologise for its inclusion.
9. Pop goes the opera singer
Most of us like to let our hair down and have a little fun at Christmas. For classical musicians, doing just that very often seems to involve performing stuff that lies way outside their usual territory – jazz, easy listening and, notoriously, pop. Head onto YouTube and you’ll find all sorts of unlikely but enjoyable mash-ups of ‘I wish it could be Christmas every day’, ‘All I want for Christmas is you’ and the like, but the prize pudding surely goes to Bulgarian mezzo Vesselina Kasarova and her operatic friends for their version of Wham!’s ‘Last Christmas’ with the Vienna Philharmonic in 2014. Go on, Google it.
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10. Lake to the party
Heading in the other direction was Greg Lake who, as one third of prog rockers Emerson, Lake and Palmer, regularly liked to incorporate all manner of classical music in his group’s songs. Make sure you play Lake’s solo 1975 hit ‘I believe in Father Christmas’ whenever you are among friends, as it gives you the opportunity to inform everyone that the catchy little tune between verses is in fact the Troika from Prokofiev’s Lieutenant Kijé.
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11. You really Auty know...
Actually, you can also do a similar trick with The Snowman, the much-loved animated film from 1982. The score by Howard Blake is every bit as gorgeous as Raymond Briggs’s book on which the fim is based, but when you hear the famous ‘Walking in the air’, do make sure that you point out to everyone else watching that the treble singing it is not Aled Jones, as is commonly believed, but Peter Auty.
12. A touch of brass
In the minds of greetings card designers, the lead up to Christmas is a time of picturesque frosty mornings and skating care-free on frozen lakes. Alas, for many of us the mundane reality involves trudging gloomily in the rain to work, and then trudging gloomily in the rain back again several hours later. Thank heavens, then, for brass bands playing festive music. Whether you hear them in a nearby shopping centre as you walk past or, indeed, on a station platform as you wait for the delayed 6.35 to grind into view, there’s something so uplifting about hearing these talented types braving the wretched weather to bring us all some much-needed seasonal cheer. Most are doing so for charity, so dig deep if you can.
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13. Heavenly Holst
We’re nearly there now. Work is finished, the tree’s looking lovely and a favourite armchair, glass (OK, bottle) of red and some quality ‘me time’ beckons. For music, how about beginning with the seasonal medley that is the Fantasia on Christmas Carols by the yuletide-loving Vaughan Williams? You may then want to follow it with the similar Christmas Day by his good friend Holst. And relax.
14. King's for a day
Regular readers of BBC Music Magazine will already be well aware of our fondness for the annual Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from the Chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. And if so, you’ll probably also already know the drill: Christmas Eve, 3pm, BBC Radio 4. Cue Once in Royal David’s City…
15. On the pull
Finally, when (or, indeed, if) you buy your crackers for the Christmas dinner table, why settle for just a paper hat, joke and plastic toy when you can have those ones that come with a natty set of whistles, horns or bells, plus festive tunes you can play together? After a prosecco or several, you may well start convincing yourself that you sound really rather good, and that maybe the New Year will be time to resume those oboe lessons you abandoned way back when. Or possibly not. Whatever… Happy Christmas!
