The Best Classical Music at Christmas

By Chris Billingham 

Christmas is a time that most of us connect to music in some way, whether it’s standing outside supermarkets singing carols, singing along to previous Christmas number ones or putting on that Michael Buble Christmas CD that is seemingly reissued every year. Just to be clear that isn’t a complaint! His version of Silent Night is beautiful. On Tuesday The Telegraph selected its Top Ten best pieces of Christmas classical music, a lovely read that you can find here. As regular readers will know, the Southern Sinfonia team selected its favourite pieces of Christmas music last year and I’m pleased to say that some of our choices and the Telegraph’s choices matched! It turns out great minds do think alike.

Bach’s Christmas Oratorio appears in both lists, which is hardly surprising given how popular the piece is this time of year. The six-part piece was written to be performed in church over the Christmas season of 1734, a date confirmed in Bach’s autographed manuscript. It is widely believed that the piece was not performed again until Christmas 1857 when it was played by the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin under Eduard Grell. Each of the six parts was originally intended for performance on one of the major feast days of the Christmas period. However in modern times the piece is commonly performed as one with a running time of nearly three hours. Southern Sinfonia performed the full piece twice last year, once with Windsor and Eton Choral Society and once with Bath Minerva Choir. Both performances were rapturously received and as an audience member for the performance with Windsor and Eton Choral Society I have to say that when watching it, it doesn’t feel like 3 hours. The movements are captivating and the time goes by in an instant.

A piece we have played a number of times this Christmas that is unfortunately missing from The Telegraph’s list is Handel’s Messiah, which we performed with The Old Royal Naval College Chapel Choir. This isn’t that surprising given the fact that this piece isn’t solely a Christmas piece, despite the fact that it is performed most at this time of year. The piece is also performed at Easter because it deals with Christ’s death and resurrection. However as Richard Whittall said in a recent blog for The Guardian, the fact the piece is so popular at Christmas gives it a special place in everyone’s heart:

“Since it has become an annual Christmas tradition, most choristers have sung it in every venue, in every iteration, with every instrumentation and in every tempo, no matter how deranged or pseudo-experimental. And in that time they have come to know the strange miracle of Messiah: after years of the good and the bad and the ugly, there is always something new, something breathtaking, to be rediscovered in Handel’s writing and Charles Jennens’s libretto.”

A choice, exclusive to The Telegraph list is Tchaikovsky’s ‘Waltz of the Flowers’. As Ivan Hewett states in the article “What could be more appropriate for a child’s Christmas than a magic kingdom of sweets and presents? That’s the scene for Act 2 of Tchaikovsky’s last ballet The Nutcracker.” The connection between childhood and Christmas is perhaps the reason this time of year is so special, Christmas music and all the other elements of the season people love (the food! We can’t forget the food!) will no doubt take them back to childhoods filled with Santa’s and presents. Memories that are evoked by this exuberant and youthful waltz.

What are your favourite Christmas pieces? Let us know on our Facebook and Twitter pages what you will be listening to over the next few weeks! Southern Sinfonia has had a fantastic year and behalf off the whole team I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has attended a performance, played with us, sang with us and interacted with us online. We have a lot of surprises and treats coming up next year and can’t wait to share these with you. Keep an eye on our website for more. 

We hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.