| Winter Carols | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | Blackmore's Night |
| Cover: | Winter carols.jpg |
| Recorded: | 2006 |
| Genre: | folk rock, neo-medieval, Christmas music |
| Length: | 42:35 |
| Label: | AFM Records (Germany)[1] Locomotive Music (US) |
| Producer: | Pat Regan |
| Prev Title: | The Village Lanterne |
| Prev Year: | 2006 |
| Next Title: | Paris Moon |
| Next Year: | 2007 |
Winter Carols is the sixth studio album by the group Blackmore's Night, released in the United Kingdom on October, 2006, and in the United States on November 7, 2006. It is a Christmas themed album. The cover artwork for this album, painted by Karsten Topelmann, is an adaptation of a street in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany, in line with the band's heavy Renaissance influence. The same street is portrayed in the cover of Blackmore's Night's second studio album, Under a Violet Moon. In the cover of "Winter Carols" the street is painted as winter time, whereas Under a Violet Moons cover takes place on apparently a summer night. While the selection "Winter (Basse Dance)" is credited to Ritchie Blackmore as composer, the first phrase comes from Gaspar Sanz's "Espanoleta" (written in 1674, this piece is familiar today from its adaptation by Joaquin Rodrigo for the second movement of his "Fantasía para un gentilhombre", which he composed for classical guitar virtuoso Andres Segovia in 1954) though Blackmore quickly goes off on his own from there. The songs no longer under copyright are credited only as "trad.[itional]" even when the authors are known.
In December 2006, Winter Carols entered at #7 on USA Billboard New Age Charts.[2]
The album won the New Age Reporter Lifestyle Music Award as the Best Holiday Album.[3]
The album was re-issued in 2013 with an additional CD of live versions, along with that year's single – a reworking of the track Christmas Eve.