Finding Christmas Music in the Music Library

Christmas music can be challenging to locate because it appears in various places throughout the collection. Music scores are organized according to the performing medium, so all of the Christmas music in the library is not arranged together on the shelf. To browse the Library Catalog for musical works related to Christmas, conduct a subject search on "Christmas music" (with quotes).

You can narrow your search by adding terms for specific genres or instrumentation. For example, you might try a subject search for the following (using quotes around phrases):

• "Christmas music" oratorios
• "Christmas music" "folk songs"
• "Christmas music" jazz

The best approach to finding instrumental music with a Christmas theme is a keyword or subject search combining “Christmas” with the instrument(s) needed. For example (using quotes around phrases):

• organ Christmas
• "brass quintets" Christmas

Below are some call number areas where Christmas music for voice(s) is concentrated:

Sacred choral music

• M 2065: Christmas works for accompanied chorus (collections)
• M 2075: Christmas works for accompanied chorus (separate works)
• M 2085: Christmas works for unaccompanied chorus (collections)
• M 2095: Christmas works for unaccompanied chorus (separate works)

Sacred songs

• within M 2110: sacred songs (collections)
• M 2114.5: sacred Christmas songs (separate works)
• M 2065: sacred songs (collections) -- this area has mostly choral works, but some are solo or would work for solo voice

Secular songs

• M 1629.3 .C5: piano/vocal arrangements and fakebooks

For other vocal works, try a keyword or subject search such as:

• masses Christmas
• cantatas Christmas
• oratorios Christmas
• songs Christmas