Culled from
Windham Hill
's five best-selling
Celtic Christmas
collections, this 19-track
Best Of
features atmospheric yuletide classics and originals from some of
contemporary Celtic
music's most celebrated performers. Highlights include
Maighread Ni Dhomhnaill
and
Donal Lunny
's lush
"Third Carol for a Christmas Day,"
Altan
's
"Soillse Na Nollag (The Lights of Christmas)"
and former
Silly Wizard
fiddler
Johnny Cunningham
"King Holly, King Oak."
These are reverently performed and arranged tunes that despite their occasional nose-dive into
new age
, factory-preset keyboard-land, manage to provide the audio equivalent of a well-tended fireplace. ~ James Christopher Monger