This week, we asked three senior musical figures to select their favourite Christmas-themed classical music (see below). Quite rightly, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and Handel’s Messiah were mentioned. But there’s plenty of great music beyond those two staples. Here, we offer seven other Christmas works you should know.
Prélude de Noël
by Kaprálová, Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra, Alena Hron conductor
Vítězslava Kaprálová was unusually gifted, music flowed from her, and from the age of 15, she studied with the leading Czech figures of the era, including Martinů, who came to see her as his soul mate (one of his masterpieces, the Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano and Timpani, was written in a state of besottedness). But these were turbulent times. The Christmas Prelude, a short, sparkly piece for chamber orchestra, was composed in 1939 and broadcast for Christmas Eve on Czech radio while the country was under Nazi occupation. Within six months, and aged just 25, Kaprálová was dead. In recent years, she has undergone a deserved revival, and Kaprálová is now acknowledged as one of the great what-ifs of the era. Listeners are therefore urged to dwell not on the tragedy of Kaprálová's life, but on the joyousness of her music.
Hodie Christus natus est. SWV 446
by Schütz, Yale Schola Cantorum, David Hill director
Heinrich Schütz was almost a lawyer. His parents believed music was beneath their well-to-do family and did what they could to steer him in another direction. Schütz was undeterred and a patron enabled him to travel to Venice, where Schütz studied with Giovanni Gabrieli. Instead of becoming a lawyer, Schütz became the most important German composer before Bach. If you feel you’re missing out on Handel’s Messiah in this list of Christmas music, Schütz’s setting of Hodie Christus natus est (Today Christ is born) has all the hallelujahs you’ll ever need.
O di Betlemme altera: Tocco la prima sorte a voi, pastore
by A Scarlatti, Tocco la prima sorte a voi, pastore. Emma Kirkby soprano, London Baroque
In which “the Italian Orpheus”, Alessandro Scarlatti, urges the shepherds of Bethlehem to abandon their flocks and rush to see the baby Jesus in his manger. Irresponsible animal husbandry.
Messe pour le temps de Noël, II: Gloria
by Corrette, Guillemette Laurens mezzo-soprano, Anne Magoët soprano, Olivier Vernet organ
Fans of organ music are like golfers: if you’re into the organ, you’re really into the organ. Michel Corrette was organist at the Church of Sainte Marie du Temple in Paris for more than half a century. Position and church were both demolished in the wake of the French Revolution, but before then (though only just), Corrette squeezed out his Messe pour le temps de Noël (1788), for organ and high voices. Stylistically, this is music cosily insulated from contemporary tastes elsewhere in Europe, but if you’re really into organ music, this one’s for you.
Quatre Motets pour le temps de Noël, I: O magnum mysterium
by Poulenc, The Sixteen, Harry Christophers director
In the first half of the 20th century, Francis Poulenc was a big deal. His ballet Les biches was commissioned by the legendary Ballets Russes, with choreography from Bronislava Nijinska and costumes by the cubist Marie Laurencin. He hung out with movers and shakers like Ravel and Cocteau. Picasso painted his portrait. It’s perhaps unfair, then, that the thing people remember most about Poulenc now is the description given to him by musicologist Claude Rostand: half monk, half hooligan. The monk takes precedence in Poulenc’s gorgeous Quatre Motets pour le Temps de Noël, completed in 1952 for mixed a cappella choir.
Star of Wonder
by Eve de Castro-Robinson, Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, Karen Grylls conductor
In 2019, Karen Grylls, music director of Voices New Zealand Chamber Choir, invited Kiwi composers to put their own spin on traditional Christmas carols. The subsequent works were performed not in December – Voices is usually on a break – but during a mid-winter Christmas tour, and later recorded and released as Follow That Star. The ever-inventive Eve de Castro-Robinson grabbed We Three Kings, gave it a driving percussion line, instructed the performers to sing with a “chant-like, ritualistic, nasal delivery”, and called her new/old work Star of Wonder. Much better.
Chorale Variations, V: L’altra sorte del canone
by Stravinsky, Collegium Vocale Gent, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, Philipe Herreweghe conductor
As he so often did, Stravinsky gets the last word. Sort of. His Chorale Variations are actually an arrangement of organ music by JS Bach, which was itself a set of variations on a German Christmas carol. There’s nothing new under the sun, right?
Music that sleighs
Three classical leaders on their favourite Christmas music.
Miranda Hutton, violinist and artistic director, NZ Barok
“I’ve played Messiah so many times and love it, but after I went to Holland and Germany, I discovered JS Bach’s Weihnachtsoratorium [aka Christmas Oratorio], because that’s what everyone plays all December. I first performed it in 2005 in Iceland. It was a joyous event with an incredible international orchestra of musicians who studied or had just graduated from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. It’s ultimate high-baroque, with trumpets and horns and oboe d’amore and timpani and choir – Christmas music must have a choir. There’s something in the music that gives me a sense of eternity, magnificence and joy, those things you associate with Christmas and celebration and unity and purpose. It’s uplifting for the soul.”
Mark La Roche, manager of artistic planning, Chamber Music New Zealand
“I love England’s Carol, based on God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, by The Modern Jazz Quartet, from their album The Complete Last Concert. At high school, I was involved in orchestras, but I was also learning drums and getting into jazz. I went into [Auckland record store] Marbeck’s, and this is the album they pointed me to. It had the sense of falling between those jazz and classical worlds. MJQ were artists on a concert stage, rather than in nightclubs, so it was music to be listened to carefully. They wore tuxedos. [Pianist] John Lewis had an almost baroque playing style and Connie Kay on drums could swing, but at times he played like an orchestral percussionist, with triangle and bells adding colour. I still play it. I bought it on vinyl, I’ve got a CD gathering dust, and now it’s on streaming.”
Gemma New, principal conductor and artistic adviser, NZSO
“The first time I conducted Handel’s Messiah was with the NZSO. It’s a special memory because it was 2020, when [because of Covid-19] we were maybe the only country that could do Messiah with a full house at Christmas. It felt surreal in many ways, and I’ll never forget that. It’s a special work whether you know the story in great detail or not. Handel creates such drama, it’s like chapters in a book, and each chapter has something to relish. Every aria is so dramatic, beautiful and touching. My favourite part is when it goes, ‘And lo, the angel of the Lord,’ and an angel appears in the sky in front of the shepherds. The trumpets play with the chorus [’Glory to God in the highest’] and they’re the angels. At one point in rehearsal with the NZSO, the trumpeters put angel wings on.”
