12/9/01

THE MILLENNIA COLLECTION: Best-Loved Christmas Carols ($39.95) and American Christmas Classics ($59.95). By Ronald M. Clancy, Christmas Classics Ltd. 1-609-886-6540, www.christmasclassics.com.

Ronald M. Clancy presents the first two volumes of his Millennia Collection, music products that include books, beautifully illustrated with paintings from around the world, and audio CDs. This is a present to buy for yourself.

By the 14^th century, restlessness with restrictions of the Christian Church led to the development of secular music with lyrics in the vernacular rather than Church Latin, and that led to the rise of carols, songs with religious content but non-liturgical in nature. This history and the histories of individual carols that subsequently evolved is recorded in the first volume, "Best-Loved Christmas Carols." A songbook of 25 carols is part of this production.

The second volume, "American Christmas Classics," gives the history of popular American holiday music, and the set of three CDs includes old favorites such as Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Tammy Wynette, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Johnny Mathis, Chet Atkins, Kate Smith and others.

In his preface, William Studwell, music professor at Northern Illinois University and expert on Christmas music, describes this as the ultimate annotated collection of Christmas music. That is not an exaggeration. Much reading and listening pleasure is to be found here.