Robert Farnon's Christmas Album And Why It Still Plays Everywhere
The Many Moods Of Christmas is a 1963 orchestral album by conductor Robert Farnon, arranged and produced by Irwin Kostal for RCA Victor. It has been in continuous rotation on American radio stations every December for over sixty years. That longevity is not accidental. The album works because Kostal understood something most Christmas music producers miss: people do not want novelty at Christmastime. They want comfort wrapped in familiar harmonies. The recording was made at RCA's Studio A in New York. Farnon conducted a studio orchestra assembled primarily from session players who had worked on his earlier pop-orchestral records. Kostal handled the arranging and conducting on several tracks himself, particularly the ones that required tight ensemble coordination around vocal-adjacent melodies. The album runs about 33 minutes across twelve tracks and opens with "The First Noel," moves through "Silent Night" and "O Holy Night," and closes with "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." What makes this record different from a standard holiday collection is the treatment of tempo and dynamics. Kostal deliberately avoided the predictable waltz-time shuffle that dominates most Christmas albums. Several pieces sit in unusual meters or shift tempo within the same movement. "I Saw Three Ships," for example, starts restrained and builds through a layered orchestral passage before dropping back down. The result sounds deliberate rather than random, but it requires a listener to actually pay attention.
I spent several weekends last December digitizing a press vinyl copy of this album because the streaming versions available online are heavily compressed. The CD remaster from 1994 is better, but it still squashes the dynamic range compared to the original analog masters. If you want to hear what this record actually sounds like, find a copy of the original RCA Victor pressing or the 1994 CD remaster. Avoid the Spotify and Apple Music versions unless you do not mind losing the subtle string harmonics that Kostal built into the arrangements.
How The Album Was Structured
Most listeners assume the album follows a chronological Advent-to-Christmas arc. It does not. The track order was designed for radio programming flexibility, not narrative cohesion. Kostal and Farnon wanted each piece to stand alone so a DJ could drop any track into a holiday marathon without jarring transitions. This is why "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" sits between "Away in a Manger" and "The Little Drummer Boy" without any thematic warning. The orchestration relies heavily on Farnon's background in big band and popular orchestral music. You will hear brass sections arranged with the same voicings he used on his non-holiday records. The strings are treated as a rhythm section rather than a traditional classical ensemble. This gives the album its distinctive warmth and explains why it sounds more like a lounge record than a church album despite the subject matter. One detail most reviews skip over: the album includes three original compositions alongside the standards. Kostal wrote at least one of these specifically for the project. These originals use the same harmonic language as the traditional pieces, which is why they do not sound out of place. Beginners to this record often ask which tracks are covers and which are original. The liner notes list them, but they are easy to confuse because the originals are deliberately styled to sound vintage.
Get the Full Details
Common Misconceptions
People frequently attribute this album to Andrea Bocelli or Frank Sinatra because the orchestral style resembles their holiday records. It does not. Robert Farnon was a Canadian-born British conductor who spent most of his career in the United Kingdom and United States. He was best known for television theme music and light orchestral pop records. This Christmas album represents one of his commercial peaks, not his artistic peak. Another misconception involves the vocal performances. There are no featured vocalists on the standard releases. Some later reissues added a vocal track or two, which confuses people who remember hearing a voice on the radio version. If you are hearing vocals on a track, it is either a different recording or a reissue modification. The original 1963 version is purely instrumental.
Where To Find It
The album is available on major streaming platforms under the title The Many Moods of Christmas. Search results may also show unrelated compilations with similar titles. Make sure the artist credit says Robert Farnon and the producer credit includes Irwin Kostal. The original catalog number is LSP-2937 for the stereo version and LPM-2937 for mono. These numbers help you verify you are listening to the right recording. Physical copies can be found on eBay and Discogs, though prices vary widely. A VG-plus condition vinyl press usually runs between fifteen and thirty dollars. The 1994 CD remaster is the most widely available physical format and retails for around ten dollars new. If you are picky about audio quality, look for the 2006 Sony Legacy remaster, which pulls from the original master tapes rather than the CD EQ chain.
Why This Album Endures
The answer comes down to production values. Kostal understood that holiday music succeeds when it feels expensive without sounding cold. The string arrangements are lush but never overdone. The brass hits are precise but not aggressive. Every instrument occupies its own frequency space, which is why the album translates cleanly through cheap speakers and expensive systems alike. That kind of balanced mixing is surprisingly rare in orchestral recordings from the early sixties. Radio programmers adopted this album quickly because it requires zero introduction. A listener hears the opening notes of "Silent Night" and immediately knows what they are getting. No modern equivalent has achieved the same level of instant recognition without relying on vocal performances. The instrumental approach removes the generational barrier that plagues most holiday pop records. Your grandmother and your teenager both accept this album without question. There are limitations worth noting. The album runs only thirty-three minutes, which means repeated plays during long holiday seasons create noticeable repetition. Several tracks use similar tempo formulas, so after the fifth or sixth full playthrough in December, the variations start to blur together. Some listeners find the consistent orchestral palette monotonous after extended exposure. If that happens to you, the individual track versions on streaming platforms allow you to shuffle rather than commit to the full sequence.
The recording also shows its age in the frequency spectrum. The original analog mastering emphasizes midrange frequencies, which sounds warm but rolls off the extreme highs and lows. Modern remasters have attempted to correct this, but the corrections sometimes introduce digital artifacts that make the strings sound harsh. The 1994 CD version strikes the best balance between fidelity and warmth for most listeners. Robert Farnon died in 2005. Irwin Kostal died in 1994. Neither living composer has attempted to recreate or expand this particular recording, which is why the original album remains the definitive version. Any newer "Many Moods" compilation is either a reissue with bonus tracks or a completely separate project sharing a similar title. The core twelve-track album has not been reimagined, replaced, or significantly altered since its initial release.
