Celebrate the season with 2024's brightest and best releases. From vibrant vocals to brilliant brass to poignant piano, these albums will fill your festivities with joy and wonder.
Christmas
Carlos Simon
For the holidays, Carlos Simon — Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the inaugural Boston Symphony Orchestra Composer Chair, and a member of The Blacknificent 7 — has released a three-song EP of Christmas music arranged and performed by himself on the piano.
The Christmas Album
Benjamin Appl, Regensburger Domspatzen, Munich Radio Orchestra
Lieder specialist Benjamin Appl celebrates Christmas with sacred arias by Bach and Mendelssohn, carols from Germany, Austria, America, Britain, Sweden and France. Appl is accompanied by instrumentalists (including his own mother on guitar), the Munich Radio Orchestra, and Germany’s most famous children’s choir, Regensburger Domspatzen, of which he was a member in his youth.
In Dulci Jubilo
Windsbacher Knabenchor, Lautten Compagney
One of the world's leading boy choirs joins forces with the Berlin-based period instrument ensemble Lautten Compagney BERLIN. The album features popular German carols, some carols translated into German, the Argentinian carol “La Pereginación” by Ariel Ramirez, the Canadian traditional “Huron Carol,” and a “Gloria” from a mass by Robert Volkmann. Hear also reimaginings of "Greensleeves," The Beatles's "Norwegian Wood," and a Praetorious chorale setting.
The Great Glad Tidings Tell
The Choir of Trinity Church Boston, Colin Lynch
The Choir of Trinity Church, Boston, performs ethereal renditions of Christmas season favorites, including current-day arrangements of classic carols.
A Lullaby Carol
Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford
Comprised of a treble line of boy choristers and an ATB line of men and women, the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford holds a distinctive place within the great English choral tradition and is revered for the vibrancy of its sound and its artistic flexibility, performing early and contemporary music with equal skill.
Rutter: Brass at Christmas
Black Dyke Band; Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus
A selection of John Rutter’s most famous Christmas carols in beautiful new arrangements for brass, performed by the Black Dyke Band. Plus, the Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus, led by Darius Battiwalla, joins the affair for the anthem “O Clap Your Hands” and two of the carols.
Schütz: Weihnachtshistorie
Vox Luminis, Lionel Meunier
Led by bass and recorder player Lionel Meunier, Vox Luminis is an early music ensemble based in Belgium which specializes in English, Italian, and especially German 17th- and 18th- century repertoire. The centerpiece for this album is Heinrich Schütz’s 1664 Christmas Story (Weihnachtshistorie) reconstructed from manuscript sources in the Düben Collection in Uppsala.
Ukrainian Christmas
Solomiya Ivakhiv, Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Serhii Khorovets
The Ukrainian violin virtuoso Solomiya Ivakhiv presents a selection of Ukrainian Christmas carols arranged for violin and orchestra, many of which are world premiere recording, retaining the ethos and predyvo – magical quality – of these musical miniatures.
Winter Gardens
Lucienne Renaudin Vary, Paris Chamber Orchestra, Sascha Goetzel
The latest album from the prolific 25-year-old trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary features a collection of winter-themed popular songs by Richard Rodgers, Charlie Chaplin, and Hugh Martin alongside short movements from the classical repertoire by Dvořák, Rossini, Falla, Kreisler, Bach, and Vivaldi.
“The album is like an advent calendar with tiny windows that you open up to find little surprises inside: pieces in various styles and from various eras and with the sounds of different instruments...” says Renaudin Vary.
Classical Christmas Albums Over the Years
Playlist: The Best Classical Christmas Albums of 2023
December 7, 2023
Playlist: The Best Classical Christmas Albums of 2022
December 15, 2022
Playlist: 2021’s Top 9 Classical Christmas Albums
December 15, 2021
2020’s 8 Best Classical Christmas Albums
December 9, 2020
