The Keeping Christmas Collection – $99
Quiet your thoughts and put Keeping Christmas in your CD player to enjoy a traditional “Service of Readings and Carols” in the comfort of your home. Intertwined with the tranquil and beautiful choral music of Gloriæ Dei Cantores are readings from Matthew – reverently retelling the story of Christ’s birth. This is a meaningful way to experience Christmas and includes the beloved “Missa ad Praesepe” or “Mass of the Cradle,” originally written for Westminster Cathedral in London. This full collection of 6 CD’s includes favorites like: Ding Dong! Merrily on High, Joy to the World, Pat-a-Pan, Sleigh Ride, Greensleeves, My Dancing Day, The Holly and the Ivy, What Child is This, Angels we Have Heard on High, Silent Night, What Cheer!, and more! The beauty of the choral music, brass, bells and chanted Christmas melodies will bring you peace and inspiration surrounded by the glorious sounds of the season. Celebrate the wonder of Christ’s birth with these stunning melodies.
Includes:
Keeping Christmas
Be Merry!
Sing Noel
Chants of Christmas
Christmas in Brass
Bells of Christmas
What Cheer
Joy’s Seven
Fanfare on Joy to the World
Critical Acclaim
- “Gloriæ Dei Cantores collaborated with The Boston Pops Orchestra on 10 Holiday Tours “One of the finest crafted, best blended, and innately musical ensembles with which I have had the pleasure to work.”
Keith Lockhart, Conductor, Boston Pops
- “I adore well-executed choral music for the holidays, and the Gloriæ Dei Cantores certainly fills the bill. Sing Noel is an outstanding, no-nonsense, moving release of intensely lovely seasonal music. Every cut works here. I especially enjoyed the crisp a cappella treatment of Caroling, Caroling (perhaps the best version I have ever heard), the brassy exuberance of Ding Dong! Merrily on High, and the commanding, nuanced delivery of Masters in This Hall. Fans of choral music will thrill to the classic sounds of the Gloriæ Dei Cantores on Sing Noel. Bravo!”
Christmasreviews.com
- “One of the finest crafted, best blended, and innately musical ensembles with which I have had the pleasure to work.”
Keith Lockhart, Conductor, Boston Pops
- “Allow this music to transport you right past the malls and into the season’s sacred mystery.”
The Dallas Morning News
- “A mystical aura that envelops the listener, a mesmerizing impact…Downright divine!”
ChristmasReviews.com
- “What a refreshing musical gift this is! Those familiar with the Gloriæ Dei Cantores singers know what a sterling ensemble they are; they deliver all the goods here. Seagull Seven’s jazzy arrangement of Deck the Halls really rocks! In these and all else, the singers exude joy and cheer through artful, infectious performances that are immaculate and engaging. The rich warmth of tone is balanced by vibrancy and energy. This is musical merriment that will bring great cheer at Christmastime – or any time!”
The American Organist
- “The Gloriæ Dei Ringers perform with a set of 79 bells covering 6 1/2 octaves. They are based in Massachusetts, but have toured in both eastern and western Europe, including Russia. This disc consists of arrangements of familiar Christmas carols as well as some original compositions for hand-bell choir by composers such as Donald Allured, Dale Jergenson, and Judy Hunnicutt. The performances are virtuosic, considering the teamwork essential to coherent ensemble in this medium. The program displays the wide variety of sounds that can be obtained from the bells through such techniques as plucking, martellato playing, and striking with mallets.”
American Record Guide
- “This is what I would call a glorious retreat … it is certainly worth it. We are given Gregorian chants corresponding to the Propers of the four masses that comprise the Nativity celebration: roughly, the Vigil Mass (evening before anticipatory in nature), Night Mass (done after the Night Office, reflective), early morning mass (at dawn, probably the most joyous of the four) and the Mass during the day (the most profoundly theological in meaning in terms of the Christmas proclamation). Rounding out the program are eight antiphons in honor of the Virgin Mary, not particularly wedded to the Nativity season, but certainly appropriate, and in practice found to be quite commonly performed during this time. Readers familiar with my reviews of this ensemble know that I am a big fan, and I find the comprehensive approach, thoughtful dynamic shadings, and generally robust and fully piety-riven performances to be models of their kind. The Schola has done a number of chant recordings, all worth seeking out, and their approach to this music is anything but doctrinaire or dogmatic, ever seeking to breathe new life and a modern freshness into this ancient music that refuses to not speak to contemporary audiences. The pared-down Gregorian melodies are just the thing to allow one to reflect on the original Christmas meaning sans ornaments, decorations, and candy canes, and you might find that this release inspires you to captures anew the spiritual and cultural essence of the season. … the sound is terrific.”
Audiophile Audition
- “These virtuosi of metal and mallet positively palpitate with imagination and their arrangements are the ne plus ultra of shimmering, quivering pulsating pulchritude. the arrangement by Frances Legge Callahan summoning up twangy sonorities and pedal notes, a delicious range of colors including plucking and martellato effects. There are eleven players in this plucky Massachusetts group directed by Richard K. Pugsley… they use 79 Malmark handbells (of 6 1/2 octaves). ‘Twas Christmas Eve receives a rather suggestive reading that ends in Renaissance dignity whilst the witty coloration of The Twelve Days of Christmas is full of pitch extremes and glittering sonorities, like stars exploding. Away in a Manger is saturated in impressionistic ostinato; if you think handbells are inflexible creatures listen to the dynamic variance cultivated by these patrician East Coast ringers. They wouldn’t rouse a butterfly’s eyelids with the spectral quiescence of their Malmarks. A Flight of Angels is rhythmically novel; the sound of mallet on bell is distinctive as elsewhere the piping of shepherds in Shepherds, Watching is conveyed trough simplicity and delicacy. Altogether their ensemble is metaltight, the sonorities they conjure full of lithe and pleasurable novelty.”
Musicweb-international.com
- “This recording … is a remarkable success. The music consists of the Mass Propers for the four Masses of Christmas (including the vigil Mass) along with the four final antiphons of the Office in both solemn and simple melodies … Textually, these chants follow the latest edition of the Graduale Romanum, and the final antiphons are taken from the Antiphonale Monasticum, a better edition than the Liber Usualis. As a program it’s cohesive, yet it combines familiar chants with the less frequently recorded Vigil and Dawn Masses. About half of the pieces are sung by the men, the rest by the women, with no octave singing; the verses of all the Mass pieces (except for the Offertories) are sung by solo cantors of uniformly high ability. The engineering is expert, favoring clarity. The notes are informative, with texts and translations printed.”
Fanfare