Christmas Tree

Most of this disc is taken up with Liszt's Christmas Tree, an unusually modest suite based on Christmas carols. It also offers charming pieces by Reger, Tchaikovsky, Rebikov, and Lyapunov based on Christmas themes, and a couple of Bach transcriptions. Eteri Andjaparidze, whose first CD was a sensational Prokofiev collection, plays this music truly superb musicianship and the kind of pianistic color that has become a rarity. Her Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring is the most beautiful I've heard since Dinu Lipatti's. And wait until you hear her delightful playing of Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride! It's deliciously witty and charming.

Collectables Records' various-artists compilation The Ultimate Christmas Album has been released both on its own and as a tie-in with a series of radio stations. There are identical editions of the album associated with KLUV, K-Earth 101 FM, and WCBS FM-101.1 in addition to this version, WJMK 104.3 Chicago. The word "ultimate" has been overused and misused in record releases to the point that it doesn't mean very much to see it on the cover of an album. Whether or not one considers this album to justify its title will have a lot to do with individual musical taste. If the potential consumer is a listener to one of the radio stations listed above, which are oldies stations devoted to playing pop/rock music of the 1950s, '60s, and '70s, he or she may agree that the album is the ultimate in holiday music of that period.

Berry Gordy was more than just a visionary label owner, he was also an astute businessman who studied and understood how the pop charts worked, and his stable of songwriters, arrangers, musicians, and singers all worked toward the same aim of refining R&B and soul music into a pop product that appealed across race, gender, and generational lines. And Gordy knew – although the radio play and sales period was extremely brief – that nothing endured more than a good Christmas record, which could regenerate sales each and every year when the holiday season rolled around again. It should come as no surprise, then, that Motown issued a sizable amount of seasonal material, and as this two-disc, 51-track collection shows, a lot of it was done at a high level of quality.