I originally arranged and recorded five Christmas songs over the period of the three Christmases (1995-1997) I lived in St. Louis, MO. I arranged two verses of each piece to accompany singing at the annual “Happy Birthday, Jesus” celebration at the National Defense Mapping Agency, where I then worked as an Intergraph contractor. After I returned to Huntsville, AL in 1998, I used those arrangements as the basis of my 1998 Christmas Project, “O, Come Let Us Adore Him,” which was my first Christmas CD.
For my 2017 project, I intended to re-record the entire “O, Come Let Us Adore Him” CD using my current instruments. Unfortunately, computer-hardware problems in my studio interfered with my 2017 plans and I saved the project until this year. This year, my plans again changed after I realized that time constraints would prevent me from finishing the re-do in time for Christmas. At the excellent suggestion of a trusted friend, I decided to construct a medley from selected (my selection) verses from the the five pieces I had used as singing accompaniments while in St. Louis.
The pictured Nativity scene is a photograph of the one my parents purchased in Israel and that was displayed in their library on the 1998 Christmas that I took the picture.
Because I had never previously recorded one of my synthesizers that I have owned for years, I used it — my neglected and henceforth unrecorded Kurzweil KME61 for every electric and acoustic bass part and the first medley melody, “The First Noel.” The orchestral strings are Synful Orchestra. I used both my Kurzweil PC3K8 and Yamaha Montage8 for selected parts.
These nine songs were recorded live at the Sheraton Wooden-Nickel in Huntsville, AL sometime around 1978. At that time, the Huntsville Sheraton Motor Inn was owned by the famous New-York Helmsley (Leona and Harry) family. The period during which I played there (1977-1979) was during the heyday of the club. The Refections featured female-vocalist Roberta Silva and all band members, Barry Billings (guitar and vocals), Billy Lee (bass-guitar and vocals), Rusty Reeves (drums and vocals), and Stan Owen, Jr. (keyboards and vocals) sing both solo and backup vocals.
I don’t remember exactly when I first encountered Alexander Borodin’s “Nocturne.” My recollection is that while I was still an employed church-organist, a couple requested that I play this piece for their upcoming wedding. This was likely in the time I was organist at Holmes St. United Methodist Church (Huntsville, AL, USA). I believe that the couple provided me with a piano arrangement, which I rearranged for organ. At that time, I made note to someday record this piece in its string-quartet format.
Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) truly was a 19th-century Renaissance man. Professionally, he practiced as a doctor, chemist, and composer. He was outstanding in all three professions and is credited with several notable discoveries in chemistry. While researching this blog-post, I found the musical score (notation) for Borodin’s string-quartet version of the piece in the public-domain. According to this Wikipedia article, the piece (also called, “Nocturne”) was composed by Borodin for his wife’s twentieth anniversary gift.
During my research, I also found a short 2006 Disney animation called “The Little Match Girl.” The Disney animation features the Nocturne. Copyright issues prevented my thoughts of merely replacing the audio in the Disney version animation with mine. I began thinking about alternative video presentations and decided that re-animating would be unrealistic time-wise, given my current animation skills. I searched for another way to present this piece. Eventually I found a translation of the Hans Christian Andersen short-story on which the Disney animation was based. I used my go-to, Mac-only slideshow-creation app, FotoMagico to make this simple presentation that again provides video to accompany the music, rather than vice versa.
To assist your more focused listening to the piece, notice that the piece makes extensive use of the “canon.” A canon is a musical form/device where one part is played/sung and is followed by one or more parts, in turn, singing/playing the same part. Well-known canons are “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and Pachebel’s Canon (another wedding favorite). Duets between each pair of the instruments (violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello) are featured throughout.
The strings sounds I recorded are made by the software instrument, “Synful Orchestra.” I have been surprised by how well it renders solo strings considering Synful Orchestra Strings are likely the best in my toolbox.
I hope that enjoy and are enriched by my presentation.
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