Mantovani – A Song For Christmas

Disc: 1

1. Mantovani Christmas Album: O Come All Ye Faithful
2. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
3. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
4. White Christmas
5. Good King Wenceslas
6. O Holy Night
7. The First Nowell
8. Joy To The World
9. Silent Night, Holy Night
10. O Tannenbaum
11. Midnight Waltz
12. Nazareth
13. O Little Town Of Bethlehem
14. The Skaters Waltz, Op. 183 (Les Patineurs)

Disc: 2

1. A Song For Christmas: Deck The Halls With Boughs Of Holly*
2. Once In Royal Davids City*
3. Jingle Bells
4. Toy Waltz
5. The Holly And The Ivy*
6. O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings To Zion (from Messiah)
7. It Came Upon The Midnight Clear*
8. The Twelve Days Of Christmas*
9. While Shepherds Watched
10. Christmas Bells
11. Mary’s Boy Child*
12. I Saw Three Ships*

Mantovani made his first Christmas single (White Christmas, with Adeste Fideles for the B side) for Decca in October 1952. Later, he recorded a further twelve numbers for ‘An Album of Christmas Music’ and it became a major seller in the 1950s. With the advent of stereo, in 1958 all fourteen numbers were re-recorded and the album (here heard as CD 1) became a million seller. It was followed in 1963 with a second Christmas album, entitled ‘A Song for Christmas’ from which this set takes it names.

‘A Song for Christmas’ finds the Mike Sammes Chorus and Singers, who often joined the Italian born maestro’s musicians. They can be heard on seven of the twelve numbers on the record. A frequent arranger of much of the music Mantovani recorded was Cecil Milner, one of the maestro’s select team of arrangers.

Among the familiar carols on the album, are some unfamiliar items like Mantovani’s self-penned Christmas Bells, which conjures up the happy atmosphere surrounding Jesus Christ’s birthday celebrations. Paul Lambrecht’s Midnight Waltz and the now-forgotten traditional tune Nazareth, are equally unfamiliar, while Milner’s arrangement of ‘O Thou that tellest Good Tidings to Zion’ (from Handel’s Messiah) is entirely free of Mantovani’s signature cascading strings.