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Go Full Choral and Make Your Christmas Playlist Better

Earlier this year, The Ringer’s Head of Production, Juliet Littman, argued that basketball players shooting less than 60% from the free-throw line should be benched. After all, it’s an important skill that can be improved via the relatively low cost of simply going to the charity stripe at your local gym and putting in some practice. But a lot of people roll over and accept these low percentages are part of the game, and, all things considered, that’s a bit weird. I like the mechanics of Littman’s take — but I like it more when the basic principles are applied to holiday music.

Collectively, Christmas / holiday music might be the genre with the highest possible upside in the game, but quality-wise, it is shooting well below 60%. And we collectively let it slide, limply accepting its corniness, when simply a tiny bit of work can make the average Christmas playlist magnitudes better. This must end. While I can’t tell record executives what to do, I can offer a few playlist suggestions of my own: namely, embracing more Advent hymns this time of year. Yes, a lot of them are churchy, and if that’s not your vibe, cool. But I’ll argue that some good chorale work is a special kind of musical seasoning, providing both contemplative depth and festive texture to any wintry playlist. 

Just so we’re all on the same page, “Advent” is the liturgical season leading up to Christmas. I’m working with a very loose definition of Advent for this list (some of these pieces are technically for Christmas), and a looser definition of hymns (some of these are carols). But I’m not in the semantics game — I’m in the “let’s make a better holiday playlist” game.

But first, download this; I'll wait: 

My feelings on Christmas music being corny are well-documented, typified in my views toward “Carol of the Bells.” In brief, “Carol” is a Christmas song that wants to be dark and edgy, but the culture came like a thief in the night, robbed it of all those qualities, then murdered the song for good measure. What’s great though, is that there is a lot of music that succeeds where so many “Carol” arrangements fall. Like the Dies Irae.


This “Day of Wrath” is most associated with masses for the dead, but I’m including in the Advent discussion by a technicality — it was originally meant to be sung during the final days leading up to the beginning of the Advent season. Think of it like Christmas’s musical hype man. I suppose any musical setting works here, but I’m going with Saint-Saëns. Hurried, rushed, whispered “Carol”-esque voices? Horn calls? Organ crashes? A second half that, when juxtaposed with the first, reminds me of the two halves of Pyramids? Camille’s Dies Irae is everything “Carol of the Bells” wants to be.

 

Another mainstay of the alt-Christmas playlist is “Coventry Carol,” which just might be my favorite carol of all time. Its premise is more than a little depressing, but, as a lullaby, it kind of works. Lately, I’ve taken to Sufjan Stevens’s arrangement of this 16th-century jam, but I wouldn’t judge you for rocking with John Denver instead. And, of course, I have to mention the Mannheim Steamroller version, which to this day remains the only song about infanticide that makes me want to drink all of the mead and watch Robin Hood Men in Tights.

I’m not saying that every Advent playlist needs to be stacked with brooding, murderous and / or death-adjacent classics. I am saying that if you were going for that vibe, you can do a whole lot better than “Carol.” There’s plenty of room for more cheery selections, too; you need something to lift the spirits when you run out of eggnog. That’s when you reach for “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light,” or “Once in Royal David’s City,” and assure yourself that you would have absolutely slayed if you were a chorister back in the day. Pearsall’s version of “In dulce jubiloalso works here. (Note that I wrote “In dulce jubilo” and not“Good Christian Men, Rejoice,” because having the same tune does not the same song make. Only one of those two versions includes the phrase ”Our heart’s joy reclineth in praæsepio,” and it’s not “Rejoice.”)  I’d also be remiss to ignore “Personent Hodie.” While I don’t feel strongly enough about any one particular arrangement or translation, when the full strength of that “et de vir-vir-vir” hits, I’m convinced I look like Michael Jai White’s Black Dynamite for about three seconds, so that’s nice, I guess.

 

The greatest thing about Advent and Christmas Day in the Northeast is that it occurs, or is at least supposed to occur, when it is very cold out. Icy. Brick. Preferably with snow. There are more than a few hymns that pair excellently with these temperatures, and “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” might be the archetypal example of these, or at least the one with the most (deserved) mainstream exposure. No playlist is complete without a few wild cards, and one of mine is the arrangement found on the Larnelle Harris Christmas album. It lasts for only a minute before segueing into “Joy to the World,” but it’s a beautiful minute of a wonderful song on a magnificent album that includes this absolute smoker of a cover:

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Behold, album art.

I’m also a huge fan of bracing walks in the evening chill, and no Advent-adjacent ambulatory soundtrack is complete without “O Magnum Mysterium.” Now, big Advent will try to direct you to the 1994 arrangement by Morten Lauridsen, which is fine, but if you, too, are going for a wintry stroll, do not listen to big Advent. Listen to Tomás Luis de Victoria. I hope Victoria was OK, because a hymn with text so joyful has no business sounding this pensive, but it is prime content for some end-of-year reflection. 

Another outdoor mainstay is “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” a personal favorite that I’m also including on technicality. Originally composed for the Divine Liturgy of St. James (nice), Ralph Vaughn Williams coupled it with the tune “Picardy,” and the version we all know and love was born. I’ve never sung this in church at Christmas, and it doesn’t show up in the Advent or Christmas section of any hymnals I have personally held, but Presbyterians sing it this time of year, and who am I to take this absolute banger away from them? 

What’s this? You’ve decided to come in and warm up, but you aren’t done brooding? There’s something for that, too. I suggest “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” (“Savior of the Nations, Come”). Martin Luther may have originally written the chorale, but Bach really upped the musical umami factor. Think of it like “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’s” cool cousin. And this Busoni piano transcription is its leather jacket.

I’m convinced that “Gabriel’s Messageis your favorite Christmas carol’s favorite Christmas carol. Maybe I’ve been listening in the wrong places, but I never hear this as much as I think I should. And yet! Listen to this recording and tell me that every carol wants to capture this vibe. It’s truly incredible.

 

Finally, we have Judith Weir’s arrangement of “Advent Prose. It’s a recent discovery for me, and while there are loads of great ways to tackle this text — Stephen Celobury’s comes to mind — Weir’s is striking. It’s celestially rich, and compounded by the fact that the tune sounds far older than it actually is (she composed it in 1983, and this particular recording dropped in 2011).

The Holiday season is made for singing the way Thanksgiving was made for wonderful unabashed gluttony and President’s Day for buying a new mattress. And we should all lean way into that. I don’t have the range to belt out a Mariah Christmas classic, but I can work my way around a caroling crowd. And last I checked, Valentine’s Day and the Fourth of July do not provide cover good enough to excuse belting out some chilly choral classics.


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