American listeners may not find this collection of old Deutsche Grammophon and Decca releases to be quite the "complete Christmas celebration" that's promised. American Christmas carols as a group are not included, although of course some of the selections from the German and English carol discs have achieved popularity in that country. The contents are also a bit unbalanced, with the Nutcracker, in a fine recording from the Kirov Orchestra under
Valery Gergiev, the only album containing music newer than the Baroque era. With these caveats in mind, this seven-CD box set offers high value for those who want to throw some CDs in a changer and keep it running through the holiday season. Recorded between 1980 and 1998, the box combines established favorites of the historical-instrument crowd,
Gergiev's aforementioned Nutcracker (the most recent of the set), and stars respectively among the youth choirs of German and English cathedrals on the last two discs. These sound especially good in retrospect: the
Bach Christmas Oratorio and
Handel Messiah performances have been partly supplanted by newer approaches, but one comes to think that the high level of musical accomplishment among boy choirs at the end of the 20th century represents some kind of milestone. No texts and no booklet notes other than track lists are included; the track lists are simply repeated on the sleeves of the individual discs, which could easily have been given over to a few relevant words. But for those in search of a large volume of well-performed Christmas music for a low price, this fills the bill. ~James Manheim