Twenty-five years ago, I picked up the first Windham Hill A Winter’s Solstice CD, there are now eight CDs in the series. I get annoyed with most traditional Christmas music. We have two radio stations here who start broadcasting 24-hour Christmas music right after Halloween! A Winter’s Solstice presents “seasonal” music that acts as an antidote to all those tired Christmas carols. And AMAZON has it on sale for $6.99! If you’re looking for instrumental music that doesn’t get repetitious and dull with repeated playing, give A Winter’s Solstice a try.
Here’s the track list:
1. Greensleeves – Steve Erquiaga
2. When Earth’s Last Picture Is Painted – Richard Schönerz
3. Gathering – Tracy Silverman, Thea Suits-Silverman
4. Silver Swans – Paul McCandless
5. Shades of White – Jim Brickman
6. Col Partir la Bella Clori – Steve Erquiaga, Joan Jeanrenaud
7. Moon Lake – W.G. Snuffy Walden
8. Come, All Ye Shepherds – Barbara Higbie
9. Beneath the Trees – Philip Aaberg, Will Ackerman
10. Down in Yon Forest – Brian Dunning, Jeff Johnson & Brian Dunning
11. Maiden Chant – Liz Story
12. When Comes December – Tim Story
13. Queen’s Prayer – Ozzie Kotani
I love this series. It’s great music to have playing while decorating the tree or quietly sipping a glass of wine while watching the Christmas lights.
Exactly, Deb! A WINTER’S SOLSTICE really gets you in the mood for the holidays.
I have several Windham Hill CDs, I believe the first was one of the George Winston albums. the company started off strong but the quality has become diluted over the years. The have a couple WH Christmas CDs, and they are pretty good.
George, the radio stations here play Christmas music on the 24th and 25th, if we’re lucky, so if we want to hear it we have to own it. Over the years, I’ve added one or two (sometimes more) holiday music CDs to the collection every year, I have about 150 now. That’s a lot of “Jingle Bells” and “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, so I often have looked for things that are different, such as guitar duos, smooth jazz (try the one by Hiroshima), and so on. My preferences tend to be the large choir albums doing the traditional standards. I do have the Spike Jones album, but it doesn’t get much play.
I have a turntable-style CD player, and like to put 5 different Christmas CDs on it and press the random button.
We started playing the music (when the big box of CDs came out of the garage where it’s stored with the decorations) when we began to decorate the house last Friday evening.
There are some Christmas tunes I don’t tolerate: “Twelve Days of Christmas”, “Rockin’ ‘Round the Christmas Tree”, the dogs barking “Jingle Bells”, “All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth”, The Alvin and the Chipmunks song. As for specialty songs, I haven’t heard Stan Freeberg’s “Green Christmas” on years, nd it would be so appropriate now.
You would go berserk (like I do occasionally), Rick, if you had to listen to two local radio stations playing Christmas songs 24/7 from Halloween to New Year’s Day. All those tunes you list, especially the one by Alvin and the Chipmunks, are played to death. Like you, we like to load six instrumental Christmas CDs in our cartridge system and listen for hours. Thanks for the tip on the Hiroshima!