A Musical Christmas Tree from Morton Gould

Today's holiday offering is a circa 1968-69 recording of Christmas music arranged and conducted by the distinguished composer Morton Gould.

It's a good program that was essentially a stereo remake of a 1949 Gould set called Christmas Music for Orchestra.

The stereo version is dubbed A Musical Christmas Tree, which fir seems to be exploding on the cover above. 

Most of the stereo LP is devoted to Gould's "Serenade of Carols" and "Suite of Christmas Hymns," also found in the 1949 set. The suite is not identified as such on the later album and the various hymns are dispersed throughout the set.

The stereo album does include two items that were new to Gould's recorded canon. First is his composition "Home for Christmas," an attractive piece of Americana that dates from as long ago as 1939. Also new was "The Little Drummer Boy," a song first called "The Carol of the Drums" as written (or arranged) by Katherine Kennicott Davis in 1941. Harry Simeone recorded the song to great success in the 1950s, attributing it to him and his producer, while replicating an arrangement previously recorded by Jack Halloran.

Morton Gould

Gould's stereo LP was split between the New Philharmonia Orchestra of London and the RCA Symphony Orchestra, a studio group. Although the album came out in 1969, it's not certain when the recordings took place. We can guess that the New Philharmonia recordings come from October 1968 and Walthamstow Town Hall, a frequently site of London recordings. That's the only Gould-New Philharmonia date in the orchestra's discography, which says the session was devoted to the music of Grieg. Even so, it's possible that the holiday songs were set down at the same time.

As for the RCA Symphony, Alan Rich's liner notes make reference to some of its recordings being made in "mid-summer." That presumably means 1968 or 1969, but more likely the former because Rich's note is dated July 17, 1969.

The RCA recordings are pleasing, and are recommended if you want stereo sound. But don't discount the excellent results that Columbia obtained in its 30th Street studio 20 years earlier. That mono LP is newly remastered and is available via the original post and the comments to this post.