We all have our favorite holiday traditions, whether decorating the tree, preparing the Christmas dinner, or giving and receiving gifts in the company of loved ones. There’s no doubt that music plays its part too, even if simply accompanying your long journey back home to the family hearth. With that in mind, Classical Carols Covered this year takes on a gentle aura, with heartwarming arrangements of favorite Christmas music—and a few lesser-known gems—to help bring you from the everyday to the magical coziness of the holidays. Among this year’s gems, Randall Goosby and Carlos Simon bring impressionistic hues to The Christmas Song, The Sixteen paint bittersweet images of the baby Jesus in Peter Warlock’s haunting Bethlehem Down, and guitarist Xuefei Yang plays her own rich two-guitar version of Schubert’s ethereally beautiful Ave Maria. Whatever you get up to this December, you’ll find something here to cherish. Randall Goosby & Carlos Simon, “The Christmas Song” Randall Goosby (violin): “Nat King Cole’s The Christmas Song has always been a favorite Christmas carol of mine. He’s the epitome of smooth, suave warmth—everything you’d want to associate with the holidays. I thought it would be the perfect occasion to blend the smoothness of Nat King Cole with the smoothness of the great Carlos Simon to create this wonderful arrangement for you all.” Carlos Simon (piano and arranger): “Of course, I thought of Nat King Cole, the swooning strings, and the lush harmonic structure, but I wanted to create something that’s quite Debussy- or Ravel-like in my arrangement, with lush arpeggios and sort of a swooning melody line.” Xuefei Yang, “Ave Maria” “Just as good movies must have soundtracks to enhance the feelings, for me great holidays must have music to enrich the soul and relax the mind. I find the melody of Schubert’s Ave Maria so beautiful and touching, which is perhaps why it has been adopted over the years for many occasions, including Christmas. I arranged Schubert’s piece for two guitars, and I play both parts myself, using one guitar as my voice and the other to accompany. Lyricism is one of my trademarks, and this piece gives me the opportunity to really make the guitar sing.” The Sixteen & Harry Christophers, “Bethlehem Down” Harry Christophers (conductor): “I’ve always loved the music of Peter Warlock, and this particular carol has a special place in my heart—I remember singing it when I was a student at Oxford University. Peter Warlock composed Bethlehem Down in 1927 as an entry into The Daily Telegraph’s carol-writing competition when Warlock was in financial difficulty, and he won. I think that’s just brilliant! “Warlock’s version is just four verses for a cappella choir—what we’ve done is just add piano and violin interludes between each verse in a very atmospheric style. I think Peter Warlock would have been very pleased we did this.” Olivia Belli, “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” “God Rest You Merry Gentlemen is not from my own [Italian] tradition, but its melody attracted me because of its noble and archaic character. I really like its implicit harmonic possibilities, which allow me to play between major and minor, between sweet and bitter. “In the holidays, we have our own ritual regarding music: in the morning, while we decorate the house or cook or wrap gifts, we love lively and rhythmic music. After lunch, which represents for us a moment of pause, we like to listen to smooth songs with a winter mood, while in the evening it’s time for traditional, sacred songs.” Maria Dueñas, “El cant del ocells” Maria Dueñas (violin): “El cant dels ocells [The Song of the Birds] was made famous by the great Spanish cellist Pablo Casals, and is a traditional Catalan song and lullaby. The original text speaks of nature’s joy at learning of the birth of Jesus, with many birds gathering to celebrate. I associate Christmas with spending time with my family and having time to reflect, so I chose a work with a nostalgic and intimate feeling—the feeling of going back home.” Sheku Kanneh-Mason, “I Saw Three Ships” “‘I Saw Three Ships’ is such a jolly, joyful tune. It’s actually a very simple tune, so it took a great arranger and pianist, Harry Baker, to make an arrangement that is actually quite epic, quite quirky, and really fun to do. Having fun and playing with this classic melody was so enjoyable.” Lucienne Renaudin Vary, “Stille Nacht” “I remember playing ‘Silent Night’ with a brass ensemble when I was eight or nine and going to hear carols at Christmas concerts in London. So, this piece has always been a part of my life and playing it with this incredible orchestra in this beautiful arrangement is like a dream. It’s very enchanting—you feel like you’re in a Christmas movie.” John Metcalfe, “Carol of the Bells” “‘Carol of the Bells’ was written by a Ukrainian composer called Mykola Leontovych and is based on a Ukrainian folk chant which is essentially a well-wishing song about good fortune and prosperity. I felt it was important to use this melody at a time when the people of Ukraine are experiencing so much suffering but have nonetheless shown us all amazing resilience, courage, and strength of human spirit. “This is an instrumental reworking of the carol, and although there is such a powerful and immediate connection with anything that is sung, an instrumental arrangement gives you a different kind of freedom and approach. You can slow things right down without worrying about breathing and speed things up without concerns about the lyrics being understood. It’s all about texture, atmosphere, and, above all, emotion.” Ola Gjeilo, “Away in a Manger” “‘Away in a Manger’ has been one of my favorite Christmas carols ever since I was a child. I grew up with an amazing recording of it on a King’s College, Cambridge album, which was the first CD my father brought home after my family got our first CD player. This piano version is based on a choral arrangement I wrote a few years ago. It takes a slightly melancholy approach, and I like the contrast between the lower register of the piano with saturated, kind of brooding chords and that beautiful light of the original carol melody.” Coco Tomita, “White Christmas” “The version of Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ I’ve chosen is a stunning arrangement originally by the legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz. There’s a sense of melancholy in the music that’s perhaps reflective of Irving Berlin’s personal life. He wasn’t well off as a child—his family struggled a lot, and to earn money, Irving would sing on the streets. It was kind of the start to his career as the greatest songwriter. I’ve tried to find the feeling of this melancholy in the tone of sound, and Heifetz, of course, adds his jazzy flair and spin on it, which for me makes it extra special.” Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, “In the Bleak Midwinter” Graham Ross (music director): “Few carols express the quiet heart of Christmas more movingly than Christina Rossetti’s 1872 poem In the Bleak Midwinter. Her words heighten the intimacy of the nativity scene in a cold, wintry landscape, away from the bright lights and festive sparkle that we encounter in so many other Christmas songs. I remember singing Gustav Holst’s beautiful 1906 setting of these words as a treble chorister in my local church choir and at carol-singing events—my arrangement recasts Holst’s harmonies within a spacious piano part that is both sonorous and delicate in equal measure. “I wrote this arrangement in December 2019 whilst looking out over another beautiful white landscape: above the clouds on a flight back home to London. Looking out of a plane window, you can acknowledge both the beauty and fragility of life, and I think that some of those qualities worked their way into my arrangement of Rossetti’s poem.” Christian-Pierre La Marca, “O Christmas Tree” “‘O Christmas Tree’ means Christmas for me. When I was young, I was in a children’s choir, and we would sing all the Christmas songs, including this one, which we’d sing in French. I think there’s a version of it in any language and in any country, so I’ve always felt this carol to be very universal. And as a cellist and an artist, I feel like a citizen of the world, so with this song it feels as if I’m speaking to many of you deeply.” Peter Gregson, “The First Noel” “‘The First Noel’ is one of the most beautiful melodies. Along with the power of the harmonies that we all know and love, it ends up having this warm Christmassy feel, this mince-pies-and-mulled-wine-sounding texture. For this version, we’re working with the choir Tenebrae and a septet of strings, recording harmonics and textures to weave in and out of the vocal ensemble like little bits of tinsel on the tree.” Daniel Hope, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” “I’ve loved ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’ since I was a kid. When you hear it wherever you are in the world, it transports you immediately into the cozy world of Christmas. We’re performing an all-instrumental version, newly transcribed by one of the greatest arrangers of our time, Paul Bateman. Listen out for the gorgeous string sound and the way Paul distributes the melodies and the dulcet tones of the piece between the different string instruments. I just do my best to float above it all!” Alexis Ffrench, “Still, Still, Still” “This is the most beautiful melody. For me, it evokes very special memories of a magical time of year. The tune for ‘Still, Still, Still’ first appeared in 1865 in a folk-song collection from Austria, and the words describe the peace of the infant Jesus and his mother as the baby is sung to sleep. I chose this carol because there’s a sense of holy silence that radiates from it, and it has a kind of perfect symmetry that appeals to me. It plays so beautifully on the piano, and I’m able to imbue the melody with a depth of harmony and sonorities in order to create something really magical. I didn’t want to disturb the carol too much, but just bring to it a sense of fullness.” Attacca Quartet, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” Nathan Schram (viola): “‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas’ was a song that really spoke to us. Because of everything that we’ve been through with COVID and not being able to visit family, it really hit an intimate note about finally being home for Christmas.” Amy Schroeder (violin): “Growing up, I used to sing this song with my grandparents, so it definitely makes me think about them. And the harmonies harken back to a time when traditions were being made.” Andrew Yee (cello): “I think one of the really beautiful things about this piece is that, as a string quartet, we don’t have somebody singing, so the actual bones of the song needed to be really interesting. The harmonies are just so nice, and it really stretched our imaginations for the sort of sounds we could find.”