Favorite Holiday Music?

[Barb]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., Sheryll Townsend <s_ings at y...> wrote:

> I'm also partial to Adestes Fideles (I have it
> somewhere by Pavarotti, very nice version) and the
> Carol of the Bells (as I have a friend who plays in a
> bell choir and I get to hear it performed every year).
> 
> Sheryll, trying in vain to catch up on her emails
> 
> =====
> "We need to be united and strong. We'll have losses and scares, 
sure. And you'll be there for each other, helping each other through 
the bad times."
>  blpurdom - Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent, Chapter 26

I love the Carol of the Bells, and I like to hear Adeste Fideles 
sung by a children's choir who actually know how to pronounce the 
Latin...I love that I'm beginning rehearsals for the Messiah a week 
from Tuesday (my favorite gig of the year!).   My favorite parts: 
the opening tenor recit/aria, The People That Walked In Darkness, 
Lift Up Your Heads, I Know That My Redeemer Liveth, Thou Art Gone Up 
On High (esp. by a counter-tenor, which is a male alto), If God Be 
For Us, The Trumpet Shall Sound, the Amen, and (natch) the 
Hallelujah Chorus.

We're going to our church's advent party this coming Saturday, and 
this is when we get the opportunity to get together with our friends 
and sing all of the wonderfully schmaltzy Christmas tunes like "The 
Christmas Song" (chestnuts roasting, etc.) and Rudolph, etc., in 
addition to lovely things like "The Coventry Carol" and "O Holy 
Night."

I also love to fill the house with the sound of medieval motets and 
the like (lots of CDs by the Cambridge Singers).  My husband's 
family does a traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner, and the 
highlight is always playing an LP of "White Christmas" sung in 
Italian!  I can't quite think of the English words any more...

--Barb