Tis not the season, but I'd like some information about a few John Williams Christmas albums

[bollemanneke 3,367]

Hi everyone,

 

A few days ago, I came across the Home Alone 2 soundtrack and foolishly opened a few tracks. I've been singing 'Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!' ever since, which has resulted in a number of reactions ranging from annoyance to doubtful 'Are you feeling all right?' questions. But it reminded me of a few Boston Pops albums I listened to last December conducted by John Williams and containing tracks called 'A Christmas Greeting' etc. All of these were gorgeous, but what I'd like to know is, what exactly was Williams' role in these albums? Did he compose these suites and did he ask someone else to write lyrics for them, or are these existing American carols he just arranged or performed without making any alterations? (I'd never heard any of these tunes before, so I doubt that could be the case.) I'm currently working on a John Williams Concert Works compilation and am not entirely sure whether to include all these gems.

 

[Bespin 8,504]

Regarding the two Boston Pops albums, none of the arrangements are from John Williams (except for the Home Alone tracks of course). 

 

No indication of that on the two LLL Home Alone sets either...

 

About the origins of these carols, I'm not a specialist, it's hard to tell if any of these albums showed some carols or arrangements as "premières"... Of course, some are traditional carols and some are from the 50's and 60's... The arrangements of the christmas carols for the Home Alone soundtracks seems to have been made especially for the soundtracks (and by many arrangers)... but hey, there's nothing very special to say about them, the recordings are great, but the arrangements are pretty "classical"! 

 

You can make a great playlist selecting all those christmas carols recorded by John Williams... but that's pretty much all there is to say about these recordings... ;-)

 

Now, whistle the Jaws Theme instead of Christmas Carols... we are still in july! 

 

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

A lot of them are just staples of the Pops annual Christmas concerts.  "A Christmas Festival" for instance, the track that is on both albums (albeit one version with choir and one without), is a classic arrangement by the great Leroy Anderson that he wrote for the Pops back in the 1950s.

 

Also, as far as I am aware, "A Christmas Greeting" is indeed a Williams arrangement of carols by the composer Alfred Burt.

 

See the credits for that album here, there is no arranger indicated for "A Christmas Greeting" but every other track does.  I would assume that means Williams arranged it himself:

 

[Josh500 1,615]

Joy to the World from Sony Classical is my favorite Williams Christmas album.

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

I love them both, the Philips release and the Sony.  They're both equally important in my holiday listening come December.

[Bespin 8,504]

17 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Also, as far as I am aware, "A Christmas Greeting" is indeed a Williams arrangement of carols by the composer Alfred Burt.

 

In the liner notes we could read: "New to the Pops repertoire, but already special favourites, are the carols of Alfred Burt ('A Christmas Greeting'). Burt, an extremely talented trumpeter and arranger (...)"

 

So I assume he's able to arrange his works himself!

[Disco Stu 15,495]

1 minute ago, Bespin said:

 

In the liner notes we could read: "(..) Burt, an extremely talented trumpeter and arranger (...)".

 

So I assume he's able to arrange his works himself!

 

It's certainly possible.  Very few of the non-Williams compositions on any of the Pops releases were actually arranged by him.

[Bespin 8,504]

John Williams doesn't have time to arrange Christmas carols... what a total waste of time. He's a serious composer!