Percy Faith XMAS (2CD Set)

PERCY FAITH: The Complete Music of Christmas (2-CD Set)

• Both Music of Christmas Albums on One 2-CD Set

• Both Albums Rank at the Top of Wish Lists of Christmas Music Fans

• The Original 1954 Mono Version of Music of Christmas Has Never Been Issued on Legitimate CD

• Features Original, Iconic Cover Art from Music of Christmas and Hallelujah! Albums

• Sparkling New Remastering by Maria Triana at Battery Studios in NYC

• Includes Three Christmas-Themed Bonus Singles

• New Liner Notes

You know a Christmas album is classic when it gets re-recorded in stereo five years after its initial release. You know it’s an all-time classic when that re-recording hits the charts a full five years after its initial release. And you know it’s downright legendary when the record company goes to the trouble of giving a subsequent Christmas album the same name a full seven years after its initial release under a different title. There’s only one Christmas album (or one album, period) that fits all these criteria: Percy Faith’s 1954 masterpiece, The Music of Christmas. Majestic, sumptuous, overpowering,,,the superlatives flow easily when describing this recording, which brought the arranging, orchestrating and conducting prowess of the young maestro to bear on some of the most beloved hymns and carols of all time. Yet, the original mono recording of this holiday essential—and its iconic cover art--has NEVER been issued on a legitimate CD until now (the 1959 stereo re-recording, which charted in 1964, has never gone out of print, and ranks #1 among Christmas albums at the Christmas music site The Yule Log)! Even better, we’ve added three mono holiday-themed singles from the 1950s as a little stocking stuffer to wind up disc one. Disc Two presents the original stereo version of the 1958 release Hallelujah!; a Christmas classic in its own right, it shows what holiday magic Percy Faith could wield in the stereophonic realm. That album was re-named The Music of Christmas Volume 2 in 1965 (hence the title of this collection); we offer it here with its original 1958 cover art. Both albums feature a brand-new remastering by Maria Triana at Battery Studios in NYC that just leaps out of the stereo, and come with new liner notes. 29 tracks of holiday favorites at their orchestral zenith!

DISC ONE 

The Music of Christmas 

1.   Joy to the World

2.   Silent Night, Holy Night

3.   Deck the Halls with Boughs of Holly

4.   It Came upon the Midnight Clear

5.   Good King Wencelas

6.   Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

7.   The First Noel

8.   Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming/O Little Town of Bethlehem

9.   O Holy Night

10. The Holly and the Ivy/Here We Go A-Caroling 

11. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

12. O Come, All Ye Faithful (Adeste Fideles)

Bonus 1950s Singles

13. Sleigh Ride

14. Christmas in My Heart

15. Christmas in Killarney

DISC TWO

Hallelujah! 

1.   Hallelujah Chorus

2.   Away in a Manger

3.   We Three Kings of Orient Are

4.   Gesu Bambino

5.   Angels We Have Heard on High

6.   Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella

7.   Good Christian Men, Rejoice

8.   Carol of the Bells

9.   I Wonder as I Wander

10. I Saw Three Ships

11. What Child Is This (Greensleeves)

12. Angels from the Realms of Glory

13. O, Tannenbaum

14. Christians Awake!