Title: Christmas Best
Artist: The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square and Orchestra at Temple Square
Length: 60:12
Publisher: Intellectual Reserve, Inc.
Genre: Christmas Music
Year Published: 2021
Format: Audio CD and various streaming services
UPC: 0783027041620
Price: $14.98
Reviewed by Trevor Holyoak for the Association for Mormon Letters
Christmas Best is a collection of Christmas music representing the best of the last 15 years of Christmas concerts put on by the Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra. Oddly, there are only 13 songs. And there are no guest soloists, there is no narration, and there is no applause. These songs were apparently recorded separately from the concerts. But that makes this a good album for when you just want to listen to Christmas music.
The CD comes with a nice booklet that has a page or two for each song, giving credits for the music, text, and arrangement, as applicable, along with the story behind the song and the lyrics. It also includes an introduction to the CD itself and a history of the choir and orchestra. The songs include “Christmas is Coming,” “The Little Drummer Boy” (“Carol of the Drum”), “Christmas Children” from Scrooge, “Ring Those Christmas Bells,” “O Holy Night,” “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” “O Come, Little Children,” “Somewhere in My Memory” from Home Alone, “The Wexford Carol,” “March of the Three Kings” (“Farandole,” from L’arlesienne Suite, no. 2), “In the Bleak Midwinter,” “A Christmas Meditation” (“Away in a Manger”), and “Silent Night.”
I did not expect to enjoy “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” which I’ve always thought was a long and drawn-out song. But this arrangement has some fun with it. I recognized “O Come, Little Children” from one of their concerts, where it was the backing for a story. It’s nice to have a version I can listen to without the narration when wanted. And the orchestra is highlighted nicely in “Somewhere in My Memory,” though the choir does sing during part of it.
I appreciate that the album ends with a few slower, softer, more reverent songs. A “Christmas Meditation” is a nice “wordless” song (instrumental plus the choir humming) that the CD booklet says was the soundtrack for a video from the 2018 concert. And this version of Silent Night was perfect to end on with the music box-like accompaniment in the background.
This CD reminds me of the Tabernacle Choir albums my parents play at Christmastime, and the music featured in the classic “Mr. Krueger’s Christmas” film (which I still watch annually with my family). It is a good mix of sacred and secular, traditional and modern. My family will definitely be adding it to our Christmas playlist.