A Winter's Solstice - Windham Hill Artists 320cbr (Big Papi) Christmas New Age Adult Contemporary Jazz Bluegrass Music

A very peaceful and serene recording that evokes perfectly the mood of late autumn and early winter. It's a perfect CD to play just before the holidays to get you in the mood for more traditional Christmas music.

Excellent adaptations of Bach music on two tracks ("Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring"/"Bach Bouree"). "Engravings II" conjures up images of a New England scene at sunset - church bells and all. "New England Morning" and "High Plains" are standouts - they both start off slowly and end remarkably - each successive listen grows on you.

"Nollaig" by Nightnoise (check them out separately) has a Celtic flavor while "Greensleeves" by Liz Story is a brilliant adaptation of an old classic.

In fact, there isn't a bad track on the entire CD. Overall, the music has a medieval feel to it and is very soothing to the soul. I have been listening to this CD for years and have many fond memories of driving home from work with it on cold autumn nights with the sunset looming just ahead and the newly bare trees silhouetted in the growing darkness on the side of the road. Just look at the album cover to see what I mean.

Highly recommended. This is not "background" or "elevator" music. The artists included on this CD are highly talented musicians and if you like this music as much as I do, there are dozens of highly-acclaimed recordings by these artist to explore. The entire Winter's Solstice series is worth getting but start with this one.