Early Christmas Music

Today's share is "Renaissance Christmas Celebration" by the Waverly Consort. According to their website, the Waverly Consort was founded in 1964 by Michael and Kay Jaffe "to explore the fascinating sounds and styles of early musical repertories". To this day the Consort remains an active, renowned group of musicians. They are performing "The Christmas Story" in New York City on Dec. 10th and 11th (hmmm... Der Bingle and Mrs. Bingle will be in New York that weekend....).

For more about the Waverly Consort, here is their website: Waverly Consort

Now, back to today's share:  Here is their 1977 release of renaissance-period Christmas music.  If you like this style of Christmas music, you won't go wrong by downloading and listening.  This is expertly performed music from centuries ago.  I like to work in some music from this period throughout the season, and this is an excellent addition to a well-rounded Christmas music collection.


I've included scans of the liner notes for more information about the performances, and for the amusing notations by the previous owner.  Apparently there was some disagreement over the content of the notes, and so the owner enhanced the liner sheet with more information ("rich americans").  There is also a bit of disdain directed at Columbia records.  Anyway - the liner notes are here for your reading pleasure as you listen to the talents of the Waverly Consort.

download link

Quick update:  Revised the cover art image here in the blog to fix some border issues.  It's not updated in the zip file, so you can right-click-save the image above to get the fixed version.