After selling out the 900,000 copies of the first volume of “Great Songs of Christmas” Volume 1 in 1961, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company contracted with Columbia Records to produce 1.5 million copies for the 1962 second volume. Customers flocked to Goodyear retail stores just as they had the year before, and again, as the year before, every copy was sold by the first week of December.
As with the first, Columbia and Goodyear produced an album of classic Christmas music performed by gifted artists of the time. Here, read the listing of selections as described by Goodyear and Columbia on the back of the album jacket, “Goodyear Great Songs of Christmas, Volume 2.”
To all Christian nations around the world, Christmas symbolizes our hopes for peace and our belief in the brotherhood of man. And while each nation has its own traditional carols, numbers of favorites are sung today in many languages. Everywhere they are heard, “The Great Songs of Christmas” inspire the same universal emotions.
The origins of some of this music are perhaps as old as the celebration of Christmas, while others are surprisingly new. Many of the world’s great composers have contributed to this wealth of music.
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing, performed here by Percy Faith and his orchestra, was composed by Felix Mendelssohn in 1840, although not as a Christmas carol. Mendelssohn could never have dreamed that a portion of the cantata he composed in praise of Johann Gutenberg and the invention of printing could become a joyful and triumphant Christmas carol.
Next, Salt Lake City’s glorious Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings O Little Town of Bethlehem. Inspired by a trip to the Holy Land, Phillips Brooks, Protestant Episcopal bishop, wrote the words to ths tenderly familiar carol in 1868. The children of his Sunday school persuaded Lewis Redner, the organist of Philadelphia’s Holy Trinity Church, to write the music.
Eileen Farrell is known throughout the world as one of the greatest sopranos of our time. Here she sings with a sweet and beautiful clarity It Came Upon the Midnight Clear and the less familiar Coventry Carol. This is an unusual example of a “sad” carol, a haunting English lullaby whose melody dates back to 1591. The orchestra and chorus accompanying Miss Farrell are conducted by Luther Henderson.
Then Andre Kostelanetz, his chorus and orchestra reverently offer Away In A Manger.
Few of the millions who sing Joy to the World realize that this carol, distinctiveyly arranged here by Percy Faith, was adapted in 1930 from a theme in Handel’s “Messiah.”
The origins of The First Noel are considerably more obscure. The words and music were first printed in 1933, but this French folk song is thought to date back to the year 1500. Nelson Eddy’s familiar voice is heard in this traditional carol.
Next, Eileen Farrell sings the melodious, gentle lullaby, Sleep, Holy Babe.
The tune of The Holly and the Ivy is many centuries old and is thought to have originated in France. The holly represents young men; the ivy, young women, a symbolism often found in very old carols. The Norman Luboff Choir, one of America’s outstanding choral groups, sings it.
Baritone Earl Wrightson and Andre Kostelanetz, his chorus and orchestra complete the first portion of the collection with moving performances of two classics: O Come, All Ye Faithful and Silent Night. The first known maunscript of the first hymns dates from 1751, although the song is probably much older. It also is known as”Adeste Fidelis” and sometimes as the “Portugueses Hymn,” though it has no association with Portugal. It is a “processional carol,” one of those sung by religious orders on the way to Christmas Midnight Mass.
Silent Night undoubtedly is the most widely loved Christmas Carol. It was presented on Christmas Eve in 1818 by a young assistant pastor and a church organist in a little Bavarian village, after a few hours of hurried collaboration made necessary when the decrepit organ broke down just before the Christmas service. That first performance was a three-part vocal with guitar accompaniment.
The gala Deck the Hall With Boughs of Holly is brilliantly performed here by The Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy. This old Welsh melody actually predates Christianity in England and was, in fact, incorporated into Christmas festivities later.
Andre Previn plays the spirited English carol, God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (i.e., “May God keep you in good spirits, gentlemen”). The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings the ethereal Angels We Have Heard on High and festive Good King Wenceslas. The music for this latter carol was adapted from a Swedish Lutheran Hymnal which dates back to 1582.
One of the best-loved orchestral works written in celebration of the Christmas season is Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker. The composer completed the ballet in the fall of 1891, and that same year proceeded to fashion some of its sections into a suite. From this Nutcracker Suite, Op., 71A, Leonard Bernstein conducts the New York Philharmonic in Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy and Waltz of the Flowers. The Nutcracker Suite was first performed in 1892 at the St. Petersburg (now Leningrad) Opera House with the overwhelming approval of its audience — prophetic of the subsequent universal popularity of this musical fairy tale.
Generations of children have associated Victor Herbert’s Babes in Toyland with the suspense, surprises and glitter of the festive side of Christmas. Andre Kostelanetz and his orchestra perform sparkling versions of Toyland and March of the Toys from Herbert’s nostalgic score.
O Tannenbaum, which children often sing as “O Christmas Tree,” is an old German melody particularly well known from the little music boxes so popular during the last century. The tune has been ascribed to a twelfth century song called “Mihi est Propositum.” About 1824 it was adapted to its present form as a carol. (Still later it became the basis for “Maryland, My Maryland.”)
The old English wassail song, Here We Come A-Caroling, has an infectgious refrain. It is probable that this carol was popular as long ago as Shakespeare’s time; it remains one of the most happy and festive songs of the season. Both of these selections are sung delightfully by the Norman Luboff Choir. Finally, Nelson Eddy sings the seasonally appropriate Jingle Bells.
Enjoy “The Great Songs of Christmas” and have a Merry Christmas!
 |
| Goodyear Great Songs of Christmas, Volume 2. 1962 |
christmaslpstocd 