December is a time of anticipation. We wait and we hope - veni, come! The songs on this album encompass many nuances and moods - from joy and jubilant celebration to deep melancholy and longing. They move between folk tunes, English carols and traditional Christmas songs from different times and parts of the world, between Bach and Ives, Bulgaria and Norway. Several of the songs refer to the passing of the year, the cycle of nature and rhythms of daily life: lullabies for peace of mind and comfort, and songs about surrendering ourselves to the unfathomable and unknowable in the midst of our everyday concerns: the stars will always shine in the sky - and dawn will come.

The four young singers of Ensemble Quartonal are among the most sought-after vocal ensembles in Germany. This time, their album program features dreamlike and fabulous romantic vocal music from the 19th and early 20th centuries with works by Mendelssohn, Rheinberger, Poulenc, Josef Kromolicki and Mathieu Neumann, among others.

Soprano Diana Damrau, dazzling in the operas of Mozart, Donizetti, Verdi and Richard Strauss, also has operetta in her blood. With this album she tours three capital cities of operetta – Vienna, Berlin and Paris – and covers nearly seven decades of musical history. En route she relishes the romance, wit and melodies of numbers by such composers Johann Strauss II, Franz Lehár, Emmerich Kálmán, Robert Stolz, Paul Abraham, André Messager, Henri Christiné, Oscar Straus and Francis Lopez. Her star guest is tenor Jonas Kaufmann and conducting the Münchner Rundfunkorchester is Ernst Theis, as expert in operetta as he is in symphonic repertoire. “For me, operetta is the most all-embracing genre of music theatre,” says Damrau, “Its indulgence, its yearning, its joyousness and its comedy all touch the heart and show the positive side of life … It rarely fails to work its magic on audiences.”