The Beacon Journal
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Deck the halls,
throw on these discs for holiday mood

Here's a look at some of this year's crop of classical Christmas music. Now, go wrap some packages, listen and let yourself relax.

Best-Loved Christmas Carols. Various artists. Sony 32053.

Sony went all-out after the nostalgia market with this set. A hardcover book by Ronald M. Clancy, beautifully illustrated with reproductions of art by Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Peter Paul Rubens and others, explains the carols' history. Clancy is a good storyteller, and carol fanciers will appreciate that he includes such details as the fourth stanza to "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear," which is often left out of hymnals. He also includes alternate titles (this carol is also known as "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear"), sources of the words and music, and short lists of people who have recorded the carol.

The set also comes with a songbook. The arrangements are simple enough for weekend pianists to handle, and they're set within a reasonable voice range. Multiple verses are included, which isn't always true of such collections.

The recordings on the CD included are by such well-known ensembles as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the New York Philharmonic. For my money, the book and songbook are enough to justify this purchase.

This is Volume II, following Best-Loved Christmas Carols. Also written by Ronald M. Clancy, its book duplicates some of the traditional carols, such as "Away in a Manger" and "O Little Town of Bethlehem," covered in Volume I. For the most part, though, the songs focus on American contributions to the genre -- think "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer," "Jingle Bells" and even "Jingle Bell Rock" (but, thankfully, no "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer").

The three discs of recorded material also cover different territory than the single disc included in Volume I. Here's "Away in a Manger" again, but this time recorded by Tanya Tucker instead of The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus. The discs in Volume II get into wonderfully old-fashioned stuff like Johnny Mathis' "Winter Wonderland" or Nat Cole's "The Christmas Song," along with fun choices like Willie Nelson singing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." The collection puts a lot of old favorites in one spot.

Both Best-Loved Christmas Carols and American Christmas Classics can be ordered directly by phone at 609-886-6540 or online at www.christmasclassics.com