Announcing a Birth:
In what is becoming a holiday tradition, I repost and add to my diary of Christmas music.
Of all the holidays celebrated in the world, no other is more associated with music than Christmas. Oh sure, you get your patriotic schlock on the Fourth of July, but that's also year-round music.
No, it's only Christmas that has music especially written for it, and played only on it.
And luckily the music I'm speaking of is NOT, I repeat NOT, the canned treacle you hear over the department store speakers. You know the kind--Christina Aguilera singing "The Christmas Song", Justin Bieber singing "O Holy Night", and other auto-tuner enhanced pop tarts butchering "traditional" Christmas carols.
No, I'm talking about the good stuff. The kind of music where it washes over you and sends chills down your spine.
I have posted a version of this diary for the past three years. This diary is going to be less about analysis and history and more about just the music. But if you're expecting The Nutcracker, you're in for a surprise and (hopefully) a treat. So lower the lights, sit by the fire, grab a Christmas-y beverage (recipe is included), and feel the stillness this music brings to the troubled world.