Customer Rating: 
Summary: an extremely delightful CD
Comment: It's an absolutely delightful CD! The music is soothing and beautiful, the singing is so lovely and angelic. The lyrics are so beautiful that it brings me tears. `how do you write down a baby's first cry...' `what can I give poor as I am, ...'
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Great music, fine performance
Comment: Recommended for everyone to have since secularized "popular" Christmas music is repeated endlessly from mid November to 25 December with dreary lyrics and superficial performance. Carols of the Nativity is immensely better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Best of the best
Comment: I,ve been collecting Christmas Music for over 25 Years especially the non-pop genre. This is my desert CD. The Chanticleer and Kings College CDs are very good but this is the summit of quiet meditative music for the season. I always listen to this alone at night and still get thrilled and overwhelmed by it's beauty and sublimity. My favorite track is "In the Bleak Mid-Winter" simply because of the beauty of the poetry of Rossetti. I always give this as a gift to my friends who enjoy beautiful acapella music.Do yourself a favor and purchase this most beautiful of all Christmas music. I own over 200 Christmas CD'S and this one gets played at least twice a season. The other Rutter Christmas CD's are excellent but not quite in the same class. This is a once in a lifetime album. It is the centerpiece of my own personal celebration of christmastime.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Music, Beautifully Sung
Comment: This compilation of Christmas carols both traditional and modern stands in stark contrast to much of the bubble gum, soda pop Christmas music so often heard on popular radio these days. There are no divas or over the top performances or attempts to make "a moment". What there is are beautiful songs sung by talented singers.So many of these carols are so beautiful that it's hard to pick out which are the best. More likely than not, that's going to be a highly personal choice but if you see one of your favorites on the track list you can be sure that it's well performed.
In short, this album should be part of your Christmas collection. It's best listened to in the quiet time on Christmas Eve.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A bleak Mid-winter
Comment: This CD contains the usual Rutter mix of gorgeous traditional treatments with a few incredibly schlocky arrangements. Fortunately, I can just leave the schlock off my iPod playlist (otherwise I'd return the CD).The real letdown is my own fault: I didn't notice that "In the Bleak Midwinter" is the Darke version, not Holst. Ugh. If only the RealAudio samples had stretched one song further down the song list.
