Christmas Songs (2018) – Albums
Tracklist:
01 – The First Noel
02 – El Noi de la Mare
03 – Somewhere in My Memory
04 – Silent Night
05 – Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
06 – Auld Lang Syne
This album features five arrangements of Christmas songs and traditional Scottish New Year song “Auld Lang Syne”.
“The First Noel” and “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” are one of my earliest arrangements where I focused on staying true to the original, while other arrangements are more mature work where I took a lot of liberties with harmony and even added some new music.
For example, I composed the extra interlude in “Somewhere in My Memory” to provide a smooth and logical transition to the new key in the end and make the form of the piece feel more complete. “Auld Lang Syne” has received new harmony which changed the mood of the song from festive and happy to sad and meditative as this is how I’ve always perceived the lyrics. Every classical guitarist knows Catalan song “El Noi de la Mare” thanks to Miguel Llobet’s arrangement. I love the melody of this song and have decided to give it a new, fresh and contemporary feel and sound.
“Silent Night” is the highlight of the album. I took only the melody from the original song and composed everything else, creating the all new piece of music.
I consider these arrangements to be among the best of all my works, it was an immense pleasure and challenge to create them and I hope they will bring joy to the listeners all across the globe.