Track Listing

1. O holy night (Minuit chrétien)
2. Pietà, Signore
3. Panis Angelicus
4. Qual Giglio Candido
5. Ave Maria
6. Gesù Bambino
7. Che farò senza Euridice
8. Cujus animam gementem
9. Ingemisco
10. Ave Maria: arr. from Bach's Prelude No.1 BWV 846
11. Mille cherubini in coro (arr. after Schubert)
12. Agnus Dei
13. Sanctus
14. Adeste Fideles (O come, all ye faithful)
15. O Jesu mi ducissime
16. Ave verum corpus (attrib.)
17. Ave Maria, Dolce Maria

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1201 in Music
• Released on: 2005-10-11
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Extra tracks
• Dimensions: .22 pounds

Amazon.com
This CD is a compilation of (mainly) devotional music sung by Pavarotti when he was in or near his prime, most going back, gloriously, to 1976. Precisely what Orfeo's lament (from the Gluck opera) is doing in a recital called "O Holy Night" is beyond me, but the rest of the selections are well chosen. The title song is gorgeously enough performed to be worth the album's asking price, the tenor's voice ringing out with great clarity and beauty, and the selection from Rossini's Stabat Mater is even more thrilling, with its ascent to high D flat near its close. Verdi's "Ingemisco," from his Requiem, is handsomely and sensitively delivered, and the others elections, with or without choir, are simply stunning. A CD for Christmas and the rest of the year as well. --Robert Levine

Customer Reviews

For the meaning of Christmas --
For enjoying the spirit of the Christmas season, I rely on The Time Life Platinum Christmas Collection, "Treasury of Christmas I", 3 CD set of 36 songs by various artists, UPC 1130-11311-2. But for the MEANING of Christmas, only Pavarotti's renditions of these timeless, beautiful songs meet the challange. I've listened to others, from Il Divo to Carerras and Domingo, but none meld the scores, arrangements and precise delivery and have the same effect upon the listener. This is Pavarotti, the ultimate tenor, recorded at his best.

A very special Christmas album
My wife and I love Christmas music, but this album is in a class by itself. It is opera, classical music, Christmas carols, and the most heartfelt and expressive personal expression of religious feeling. It is exalted and joyous, and to my wife and me, inexpressively beautiful. We're listening to "O Holy Night" as I type this on Christmas Eve, as we've listened to this album since its release, several times each year before and after Christmas. Each year, I discover new depths and new appreciation for songs that we maybe didn't hear as clearly previously.

Forget the aging Pavarotti singing with diminished voice into a microphone to packed arenas, handkerchief in hand. This was recorded in January 1976 in England when Pavarotti was in his prime, movingly expressing his deep religious feeling through magnificent music. The great opera conductor Kurt Herbert Adler of the Chicago Lyric Opera and then Music Director of the San Francisco Opera perfectly led the National Philharmonic Orchestra, along with the magnificent Wandsworth Boys Choir and London Voices led by Terry Edward. I should point out that this album is classical and operatic music, or beloved carols done in a classical or operatic style. You won't find "Frosty the Snowman", "Jingle Bells", or "A Chipmunk's Christmas" here.

Treat yourself to this album, and look forward to years of deepening appreciation and pleasure from it. It can become an integral part of your Christmas celebration, a special annual treat, as it's become for my family.

The Maestro
These are the great musical selections that only Pavarotti can do justice. To put them into the hands of someone else would be a disservice to both the composer and the listener.