Happy Holidays!

I wanted to do this already in October, to get a head start, but as usual I was not able to find time, and so I only could start work on this on 18.December. Since many years I wanted to create my own arrangements of some Christmas songs/carols. This dates back to the late 1970s / early 1980s when I did play the piano on Christmas eve with the family, when they would sing those carols, and I would improvise some adhoc accompaniment. I had many ideas at that time for new harmonies and unusual interpretations of the melody, but that did not sit so well with the other family members, who wanted the more traditional way...

Between 1998 and 2003 I did a few interpretations of Christmas Carols and recorded them, but since then the Christmas project has been on hold.

Until now. On 18.December I sat down on my keyboard, fired up Maestro-2, and began to create the arrangement of "Silent Night". I planned to put all original 6 verses in, with the "singing part" being arranged in traditional ways, but framed by a prelude, 5 interludes, and one postlude. Well, time constraints allowed me only to complete three verses. The rest has to wait until 2011.

I posted the MP3 recording on 19.December, and a few days later on 23.December I posted a slight update, in which I had taken off the edge of some of the dissonances, and also had added some more brass, for a fuller sound.

I then looked through my archive of Night/Christmas pictures, and assembled them in this video:





I hope you enjoy this!

Merry Christmas to everyone, and best wishes for the New Year 2011!