Through the Bitter Frost & Snow

McKeown/Horner, Susan McKeown | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 14, 1997)
• Original Release Date: October 14, 1997
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: 1-800 Prime CD
• ASIN: B0000035L8
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,625 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is among my favorite christmas cds, December 8, 2006

By 

Kevin Gill (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Through the Bitter Frost & Snow (Audio CD)

This is a great album. McKeown, accompanied principally by upright bassist / backing vocalist Lindsey Horner, have produced a bittersweet ode to the christmas season. The music has a melancholy reflective of the "bitter frost and snow," and the lack of sunlight, of the winter season. And yet, "through" the melancholy (as the title implies), there is a warmth and a smile that reminds you of blazing yule log, christmas lights, a hot cup of egg nog or buttered rum, and friends and family huddled together.

In some ways it pairs well with the Chieftain's christmas opus, The Bells of Dublin. This one is a little more jazzy, think perhaps of Vince Guaraldi-esque wandering basslines. I'm not going to do a song-for-song breakdown, because I think the album has such a great flow that the whole composition is greater even than the individual numbers.

I hope you enjoy this christmas cd as much as I do.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A winter album you feel in your bones, December 5, 2009

By 

R. Robbins - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Through the Bitter Frost & Snow (Audio CD)

A wonderful musical effort. I love Susan's voice and she uses it here to great effect. Wonderful song arc with great versions of traditionals such as "Green Grow'th the Ivy" and "Auld Land Syne" and a top notch version of Leo Kretzner's wonderful song "Bold Orion". Marvelous ensemble playing in a jazzy celtic manner.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A light shines in the darkness, June 7, 2009

By 

Zhang Yu Huan "student" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Through the Bitter Frost & Snow (Audio CD)

I bought this album for the song "Bold Orion," by Leo Kretzner, which I heard performed back in 1983 by Dick and Anne Albin, and has haunted me since. The song apparently has that quality, as Ms. McKeown relates a similar story in the liner notes. I really liked the McKeown/Horner rendition, which perfectly caught the mood of having one's heart caught by diamond stars on a frigid night, the contrast between the human scale and the eternal.

The other pieces are well done winter mood pieces, without the marzipan sweetness of some Christmas albums. Here, it's dark and cold, but light and hope are not absent. The comparison by another reviewer to Loreena McKennitt is apt; both will attract the same audiences.