Naxos Musical Journey: Christmas Goes Baroque - Scenes From Switzerland (Full Screen) [DVD] - Very Good

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Amazon.ca Video wallpaper designed to run in the background of your holiday festivities, complete with an easily accessed repeat function to allow for constant play, Christmas Goes Baroque dresses up several beloved carols in the concerto grosso style. Music isn't the prime concern here, but the CSSR State Philharmonic Orchestra, under the baton of Peter Breiner, acquits itself to the task well enough, with all the required flourishes. A handful of the numbers are ingeniously transformed ("We Wish You a Merry Christmas" becomes a stately, enjoyably pompous march, while after a splashy, regal fanfare, "O Tannenbaum" is rendered as a lively, albeit banal, little fugue), but most of the arrangements consist of little more than added trills. The visual tours of Switzerland are equally obvious and pleasant, from a gliding look up at holiday lights strung across the street to a visit to a toy store, young children enchanted by the stuffed animals on display. But this is not a genre for surprises or originality. Appropriately sentimental and dutifully supplying shots of snowy winter landscapes, lovingly arranged trays of mouthwatering delicacies, colorful religious paintings, and puppet Santas rocking behind department store windows, Christmas Goes Baroque offers exactly what you'd expect, right down to the general absence of holiday revelers, the better to focus on the sights. --Bruce Reid From the Back Cover Zurich's bustling holiday shoppers; twinkling lights reflected in magical window displays; the famed Toy Museum in Nuremberg; a bountiful Christmas feast; an elaborate Nativity scene; the snow covered landscape of Switzerland. These are the joyously evocative images of the Christmas season and inspiration for some of the most beloved Christmas Carols of all time. This volume of the NAXOS MUSICAL JOURNEY takes you on a magical European holiday tour swept up by the sounds of such holiday favorites as "Jingle Bells," "Silent Night," "The First Noel," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen," "O Tannenbaum" and many more. These eternal favorites are performed in the baroque style of Bach, Handel and Vivaldi. The sound of music as timeless as Christmas itself.

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