Sissel - Winter Morning (2022)

Just as many saw her annual Christmas show, and yesterday she was back in Bærum. Four Norwegian cities will be on the tour, but Sweden and Denmark will also be visited. Sissel is international, but it’s mostly now before Christmas. We see and hear very little from her for the rest of the year.
But the plates are coming close. Since 2019 she has released five albums and one EP entitled ‘Reflections’ with Roman numerals after them, two of which are wholly or partly Christmas records. The other songs include old “pop whispers”. How many of these have you heard?

Sissel takes some of the songs in an operatic direction and she sings so beautifully. It’s beautiful in many ways and very impressive at times, but why does Christmas have to be so sad? Even we can’t fall asleep in the middle of Christmas! We’re sad enough the way it is now. What’s wrong with a little speed?

A lot of other things aren’t right with this album either: it’s overly beautiful, it’s unexciting, routine, at times pompous, boring and old-fashioned – and the selection of songs is too traditional. It’s so slow! And haven’t we heard these Christmas carols enough already? Wasn’t it possible to find some tunes that weren’t sung to death, anything but “Auld Lang Syne” and the above songs?

New thinking is obviously not something Sissel and her husband spend time on, but she does hair has co-written a new song with Ravnaas, the opening “Winter Morning”. This is where the chorus comes into its own, and that’s certainly a good start. Plus in the book!

Following “The Mystery of Christmas” is a beautiful song too, but Sissel’s new version is still a pale shadow of the versions by Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald, both from 1959. In the Hymn of Saint Thomas Aquinas “Panis Angelicus”the most exciting “piece” here, she finds a decent balance with the choir – even if he never does powerful.

The big question that arises when you listen to it repeatedly is: Is Sissel in the process of defining himself as a “normal” artist and then being content with performing every year just before Christmas? Like the “Queen of Christmas”? If so, it needs to be renewed.

Tracklist
01. Sissel; Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - Winter Morning
02. Sissel; Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - The Secret of Christmas
03. Sissel; Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - Det hev ei rose sprunge
04. Sissel; The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - Deilig er jorden
05. Sissel; The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - Silent Night
06. Sissel; The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - Panis Angelicus
07. Sissel; The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square - Auld Lang Syne