Mantovani - A Song For Christmas - Eloquence: ELQ4840268 - 2 CDs

Release Date: 30th Nov 2018
Catalogue No: ELQ4840268
Label: Eloquence

Usually despatched in 3 - 4 working days

Mantovani – Christmas Album

O Come all ye Faithful

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

White Christmas

Good King Wenceslas

O Holy Night

The First Nowell

Joy to the World

Silent Night, Holy Night

O Tannenbaum

Midnight Waltz

Nazareth

O Little Town of Bethlehem

The Skaters’ Waltz, Op. 183 (Les Patineurs)

A Song for Christmas

Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly

Once in Royal David’s City

Jingle Bells

Toy Waltz

The Holly and the Ivy

O Thou that tellest Good Tidings to Zion (from Messiah)

It Came Upon the Midnight Clear

The Twelve Days of Christmas

While Shepherds Watched

Christmas Bells

Mary’s Boy Child

I Saw Three Ships

About
Explore

About

Mantovani made his first Christmas single (White Christmas, with Adeste Fideles for the B side) for Decca in October 1952. Later, he recorded a further twelve numbers for ‘An Album of Christmas Music’ and it became a major seller in the 1950s. With the advent of stereo, in 1958 all fourteen numbers were re-recorded and the album (here heard as CD 1) became a million seller. It was followed in 1963 with a second Christmas album, entitled ‘A Song for Christmas’ from which this set takes it names.

‘A Song for Christmas’ finds the Mike Sammes Chorus and Singers, who often joined the Italian born maestro’s musicians. They can be heard on seven of the twelve numbers on the record. A frequent arranger of much of the music Mantovani recorded was Cecil Milner, one of the maestro’s select team of arrangers.

Among the familiar carols on the album, are some unfamiliar items like Mantovani’s self-penned Christmas Bells, which conjures up the happy atmosphere surrounding Jesus Christ’s birthday celebrations. Paul Lambrecht’s Midnight Waltz and the now-forgotten traditional tune Nazareth, are equally unfamiliar, while Milner’s arrangement of ‘O Thou that tellest Good Tidings to Zion’ (from Handel’s Messiah) is entirely free of Mantovani’s signature cascading strings.

Mantovani - A Song For Christmas

2 CDs

Contents

Download queue