This lovely album comprises unique and rich Christmas repertoire from Belgium with interpretations either in the folk tradition or in a more classical style. The album boasts world premiere recordings performed by Jean-Pierre Hees (bagpipes) and Luc Ponet (organ), Vincent Gregoire (tenor), Consorella and Trio Musa.

The provinces of Belgium have a unique and very rich traditional repertoire of Christmas carols. The oldest of them date from the Middle Ages. The mood of the carols varies between intimate enchantment and festive exuberance. Jean-Pierre Hees and Luc Ponet have chosen a variety of approaches to the repertoire whose many facets invite interpretation either in the folk tradition or in a more classical style.

The organ and the bagpipes are cousins, both being aerophones with a bellows and multiple pipes. The organ developed into an instrument with multiple registrations, effectively putting several families of instruments into the hands of a single player. This development made it less and less portable, so that it ultimately became a fixed instrument. The bagpipes, meanwhile, have retained their character as a wandering minstrel’s instrument with its origins in agropastoral tradition, used to accompany festivities both outdoors and indoors. This may be one of the reasons why the two instruments have rarely been combined in performance, even though their sonorities go together surprisingly well, to the point that the bagpipes sometime sound like an organ stop.