This is a Christmas disc from the well-loved children's choir based at a Protestant church in Dresden, in eastern Germany. It may be striking to U.S. listeners, and even to those in other non-German-speaking countries, how unfamiliar it is musically. Conductor Roderich Kreile speaks movingly of the importance of Christmas traditions in an interview that serves as a set of liner notes, but this is a very different set of Christmas songs than would be heard outside Germany. "Christmas carols" in the English translation of the ...
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This is a Christmas disc from the well-loved children's choir based at a Protestant church in Dresden, in eastern Germany. It may be striking to U.S. listeners, and even to those in other non-German-speaking countries, how unfamiliar it is musically. Conductor Roderich Kreile speaks movingly of the importance of Christmas traditions in an interview that serves as a set of liner notes, but this is a very different set of Christmas songs than would be heard outside Germany. "Christmas carols" in the English translation of the interview is not really a good rendering of the German word Weihnachtslieder, or Christmas songs; many of the pieces here are not carols in the strict or even the loose sense of the word. Instead, as Kreile said, "we always present items in motet style in addition to hymns in simple harmony." This means that you will hear, for example, Anton Bruckner's difficult even-part Ave Maria in addition to four-part hymns anyone could sing. The Dresdner Kreuzchor is unaccompanied...
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