Okay, I think we’re close enough to Christmas by now to allow me to get away with this year’s repost of one of the very best serendipitous barside a cappella get-togethers in all of human history.
I’ve told the story behind this lovely recording before here, but it always bears repeating: the brilliant and hugely popular vocal ensembles Chanticleer and Cantus, during their annual joint Christmas-season tour, were hanging out at the hotel bar together after a show when they were suddenly inspired to burst into song, performing Franz Biebl’s gorgeous setting of the traditional Ave Maria before a rapt if unsuspecting audience.
The results are nothing short of miraculous; as many times as I’ve watched this vid, I still can’t help but think to myself that, to quote Salieri’s unforgettable line from Amadeus, “This was a music I had never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing. It seemed to me that I was hearing the very voice of God.”
And this is where the bleg comes in, folks. See, there’s this fantastic Christmas album—recent, I believe, since I don’t recall the local classical-music radio station playing it before this year, although admittedly I pretty much missed out on last year’s Christmas completely—off of which I’ve been hearing a sort of mashup/medley for solo piano of Beethoven’s Für Elise with “We Three Kings.” I thought the album’s title might have been something along the lines of A Very Beethoven Christmas or Christmas With Beethoven or something along similar lines, but I cannot for the life of me remember what the dickens it actually was/is called.
Believe me, I’ve tried; I spent the last three hours Duck Duck Go’ing every permutation of “Beethoven” and “Christmas” I could conjure with and came up straight snake eyes, every single time. BUT…I did run across what I suspect might be it:
The only related info I’ve been able to locate online, other than a mere handful of vids on YewToob, is the “Classical Carols” book of sheet music on Amazon. No albums, CDs, tapes, or other audio-recording media at all. I’m stumped, I confess. So if anybody out there has any information for me concerning this elusive Beethoven Christmas album I may well have hallucinated, do speak up in the comments.
Could this be what you’re looking for:
https://www.amazon.com/Beethoven-Christmas-Music-Vol-1/dp/B002LS0YDW