The Many Moods of Christmas

The Many Moods of Christmas is an album of eighteen Christmas carols conducted by Robert Shaw, grouped into four medleys. The carols were arranged for chorus and orchestra by famed Broadway orchestrator Robert Russell Bennett.

The album has been recorded twice. As was the custom for stereo albums made before 1967, the original version, performed by the Robert Shaw Chorale and Orchestra, was released by RCA Victor in both mono and stereo in 1963. The album was a great success, but unfortunately the shadow of President John F. Kennedy's then-recent assassination cast a pall over Christmas for many people that year.

In 1983, two years after Robert Russell Bennett's death, Shaw recorded a somewhat revised digital stereo version of The Many Moods of Christmas, with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, released that December by Telarc. It was the first of three Christmas albums that Robert Shaw recorded for Telarc. While the first version of The Many Moods of Christmas had been made with rather close miking in a recording studio, the newer version was recorded in the more spacious environment of Atlanta Symphony Hall in the Woodruff Arts Center, resulting in a recording with more reverberation than the first.

The digital version remains a popular seller today, and for several years it eclipsed the original 1963 version, which had gone out of print. However, the 1963 edition has since been reissued, and both are now available on CD.