I love to stream classical Christmas music, for free

Who needs Spotify?

I usually have my car radio tuned to the local classical music station, and during December, I like to listen to the kind of Christmas music the station plays — Christmas carols sung in English cathedrals, Handel’s “Messiah,” the Nutcracker, that sort of thing.

While I also listen to the radio at home (an increasingly old-fashioned pastime) I also like to stream some of my favorite Christmas albums, including from the two main public library music services, Hoopla and Freegal.

You don’t have to pay for Spotify to get commercial-free music if you know how to use your library card. I’m stressing here the kind of Christmas music I prefer, but my other point is that the two library services provide a wide variety of music you don’t have to pay for.

Here are a few of my favorite Christmas albums from each service. I hope these links work, but if they don’t, just run a quick search.

Hoopla

I’m going to talk about albums on Hoopla first, because if you have a library card in the U.S., you probably have access to Hoopla. It’s a streaming service that offers movies, TV shows, ebooks, audiobooks, documentaries, comic books and music recordings.

Hoopla is offered on a smartphone app and on computers. Your local library controls how many items you can borrow from Hoopla each month.

Here are some beautiful Christmas albums on Hoopla:

An Empire Brass Christmas: The World Sings. Brass, percussion and vocals, with some interesting arrangements.

Alfred Deller: The Complete Vanguard Classics Recordings: Music For The Christmas Season. Countertenor Alfred Deller (1912-1979) was a giant of Renaissance and Baroque music. Here, he puts his skills to good use in a collection of 79 old carols. Many of your favorites probably are here.

Hereford Cathedral. Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC BY-SA 3.0

Christmas Carols From Hereford Cathedral. If you use “carols,” “cathedral” and “abbey” as your search terms, there are endless albums of English Christmas carols to try on Hoopla. I haven’t tried them all, obviously, but I still think this is one of the best.

A Concord Jazz Christmas. A great collection, mostly in a traditional jazz vein. Karrin Allyson’s version of “Coventry Carol” is particularly hard to resist.

Christmas Christmas, Cheap Trick. If you have a favorite pop or rock act, you may as well see if they have put out a holiday album. I like Cheap Trick.

Freegal

Freegal is the other main library music streaming service, but it isn’t offered by most public libraries. If you can figure out how to pull it off, you’ll want to have library cards to give you access to both services, as there is little overlap between what’s offered by them.

A few Freegal favorites:

Renaissance Noël, Vox Renaissance Consort, Valenin Radu. I’ve listened to quote a few albums of Renaissance and medieval Christmas music, and to my ears, this is one of the best.

The Promise of Ages - A Christmas Collection, Andrew Parrott, New London Chamber Choir, Taverner Consort & Players, Henrietta Barnett School Choir. I’ve tried to find a better album of Christmas vocal music, but it feels like a doomed effort. Really great. Here is the review by James Manheim at Allmusic, he thinks it isn’t bad, too.

ISTHMUS BRASS CHRISTMAS, Isthmus Brass. These guys claim to be “the finest professional brass players in the Midwest,” and judging from this album, it might be true.