ROUSE Karolju. LUTOSŁAWSKI Polish Christmas Carols.1 RODRIGO Retablo de Navidad2 • David Zinman, cond; Julia Doyle (sop);1 Anna Stephany (mez);2 Philharmonia Ch (Deborah Miles-Johnson, dir); BBC SO • RCA 711561 (67:14)

Not being personally into the religiosity of Christmas, I nevertheless love the communal and festive spirit of the season, and yes, I listen to select Christmas music, my favorites in the classical sphere being Messiah, The Nutcracker, Kathleen Battle’s album with Christopher Parkening, and the Mediaeval Christmas music recorded eons ago by the New York Pro Musica.

This album caught me completely by surprise. Not only is the music festive and joyously performed, it’s both attractive and creative. Undoubtedly the greatest charm on this disc comes from Christopher Rouse’s Karolju, commissioned by Zinman when he was music director of the Baltimore Symphony. Karolju, possibly Rouse’s most tonal work, has just enough piquant harmonic shifts to make it more interesting than the usual string of carols that inspired him as a boy. The lyrics aren’t in the booklet, however, because Rouse—who doesn’t know any of the languages used (Latin, Swedish, French, Spanish, Russian, Czech, German, and Italian)—simply used a few “Christmassy” phrases that “are not intelligibly translatable for long periods of time.” But it’s still delightful strictly as music, effervescent and engaging. I really loved it.

Also quite beautiful, and with more intelligible texts, are 17 of Lutosławski’s 20 Polish Christmas Carols. Written with piano accompaniment in 1946 and scored for orchestra by the composer in 1985, they are largely reflective pieces sung with obvious love and charm by the Philharmonia Chorus. Soprano Julia Doyle, stepping out of the chorus, is simply enchanting. Yet perhaps it is only my personal prejudice that I feel it an error to end the program with the even quieter Retablo de Navidad of Rodrigo. Though it, too, is beautifully performed, something of a return to Karolku’s energy would have been welcome.

David Zinman is my favorite of modern “objectivist” conductors. Though I sometimes feel that he misses just a touch of spontaneity in his performances, they are never cold or uninteresting; he understands color, phrasing, and (as Toscanini once said) “what to do between the pp here and the ff there.” This disc is yet another addition to a solid and sometimes inspiring recorded legacy. If you have zero interest in Christmas music, by all means pass it up, but just consider: it’s performed here by an American Jewish conductor leading a mostly Anglican British orchestra and choir! Recorded at the Watford Colosseum in Hertfordshire, the sound is warm and sumptuous, perhaps lacking a bit of “edge” in the upper voices and strings but crystal-clear nonetheless.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley