Peter Schaub Dynamics

For most artists recording a Christmas record is a convenient stop-gap in between releasing new material. In Peter Cetera's case this doesn't ring true as it has been a while since we last heard from one of soft rock's most distinctive crooners. You Just Gotta Love Christmas brings to the table everything you'd expect from a Peter Cetera record: lush, pleasant arrangements with crisp, warm, polished production and able musicanship from a crew of veteran session players. It's a mix of holiday favorites mixed in with a few originals and some guest appearances from Alison Krauss and Peter's daughter Claire; who is more than up to the task of singing with her father on two of the album's 12 tracks. Cetera and Chicago fans will no doubt enjoy having this on in the background during the holidays.

Written in the summer of 1749, Theodora was premiered in London at Covent Garden Theatre on 16 March 1750. This work, which Handel considered his finest oratorio, was a failure at first - Handel said bitterly that the hall was so empty that "there was room enough to dance there." Part of this failure could be explained by the earthquake that hit London in February of the same year and caused the upper classes to flee the city, but another possibility is that the subject matter of the oratorio - the rebellion of a woman against the power of the state - was a bit ahead of its time.

The German composer Johann Gottlieb Naumann is mostly known for his operas. One of them, Gustav Wasa, which he composed in Sweden in 1786 and which he considered his best work, even became a Swedish national opera. This recording shows a lesser known aspect of Naumann's output: his sacred compositions. It contains three works: a large-scale cantata and two short pieces, which are much more modest in scoring and style.

A pupil of William Byrd, Thomas Tomkins' technique as a contrapuntalist was second to none, as can be heard in the Great Service or the anthem O God, the proud are risen against me. In this respect alone he was the composer who most obviously continued Byrd's achievement.