A “Christmas” piece I look forward listening to every year is “Karolju” by American composer Christopher Rouse (1949-2019).

It really has very little to do with authentic Christmas, when you get right down to it. Rather, Rouse deliberately attempts to emulate the spirit of Old World midwinter celebrations. The music is multicultural, alluding to a number of classical music favorites, such as “Carmina Burana,” “The Nutcracker,” and “Greensleeves” (which I know is a folk tune, but I’m going with “classical” because of the Vaughan Williams association).

The texts themselves are equally eclectic, as the composer assembles words and phrases related to Christmas in various languages, though he concedes that if they were translated into English they wouldn’t come out making a lot of coherent sense. Rather, again, it is the spirit of the words and their sounds that inspired.

Even the name “Karolju” is nonsense. Rouse wanted “carol” in the title, but he changed the “c” to a “k” and added the “ju” at the end, just to give it an Old European flavor.

The different sections are related to Latin, Swedish, French, Spanish, Russian, Czech, German, and Italian.

The work was commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 1989 and dedicated to Rouse’s daughter, who was about to celebrate her first Christmas. It certainly does make a festive noise!

On this first day of winter, I hope you’ll enjoy “Karolju” by Christopher Rouse.