25 Carols of Christmas: No. 22

As we head into the final stretch of the countdown, I find myself returning to the three CDs in my collection that I love the most: Amy Grant’s A Christmas to Remember, Vince Gill’s Breath of Heaven and Michael W. Smith’s Christmastime. Today’s selection is from the Amy Grant CD, but it doesn’t feature her vocals at all. It’s an instrumental piece titled Gabriel’s Oboe—performed, as nearly as I can tell, by musicians in the Nashville Studio Orchestra, who accompany many of the songs on this CD. The music does, indeed, sound angelic and brings to mind the accounts of angelic encounters surrounding the birth of Christ—first by Mary, as she’s told by Gabriel that she has been chosen to carry Jesus, then by Joseph in a dream, and finally by the Bethlehem shepherds who are called to the manger after the baby is born. I hope you enjoy its sweet strains as much as I do!

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