Christmas Beside an Old Piano

"Christmas Beside an Old Piano" has five pieces. They may be played individually. The entire album takes about 20 minutes to perform. One selection is for violoncello solo and piano. "Joy to the World" has an ebullient and euphoric expression. "Silent Night" is in smooth jazz harmony. "Away in a Manger" is an easy-listening reflection on this gentle melody that features some unusual reverberation and arpeggio effects. "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear" --- Imagine if a symphony composer in Vienna named Ludwig and a Country-and-Western piano player in Nashville named Floyd met at an old piano to collaborate on a cover of "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." They might have come up with this. And maybe not. Rhapsody on "In the Bleak Midwinter" is heard in two arrangements. One if for piano solo. The other is for violoncello solo and piano. The cello part for the latter is on page 37 of the printed score. Silent Night (Beale Street, Memphis; 1914) The four blocks of Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee, were a bustling district of river traffic and popular entertainment in the early 20th century. The avenue fell into decline as the decades went by. This interpretation reflects on what it might have been like if the Holy Family had gone to Beale Street instead of Bethlehem. Would there have been "no room for them at the inn"? Jingle Bells. Or, A Sleighride Around the Keys. When James Pierpont wrote the original form of "Jingle Bells" in the late 1850s, he had in mind the horse-drawn sleighs at a winter festival in Massachusetts. His lyrics imply that the words "Jingle Bells" were a command, as in "Start jingling, you bells!" Pierpont was also apparently expressing the percussive rhythm of the prancing horses and the flow of the sleighs gliding over the snow, often wobbling, fishtailing, and even overturning. Listen for all these sound-images, and in the closing passage, a distant church bell playing the "Westminster Chime," in this happy-go-lucky interpretation that cannot quite decide what key it wants to be in.