PEACEFUL CHRISTMAS is a piano album recorded from home during the last week of October 2021 in Cyprus. It features 11 tracks of original compositions and arrangement.
1. Il Est Né, Le Divin Enfant – This traditional French carol was often played on the loudspeakers of our street in Beirut, Lebanon, during Christmas when I was a little boy. The tune stuck with me since then and always gave me a cheerful feeling. I wanted to record this carol almost as a tribute to those memories…but had no preconceived arrangement in mind until I sat on the piano during the first recording session – one of those interesting scenarios where the fingers decide what to play before the mind gets into gear! It turned out to be one of my favourite tracks of this album, so I decided to begin with it.
2. What Child Is This? (Greensleeves) – Set to the tune of the English folk song, Greensleeves, this is one of my favourite carols musically, as it provides plenty of opportunities to add nuances in the accompanying chords and shifts between minor and major modes. I actually did this particular arrangement 30 years ago (!) in university days and performed it for a Christmas concert back then. More recently, our son played a simpler version of it for another mini concert. Now, finally, it is released on this album.
3. Bereden Väg För Herran – A traditional Swedish carol with the tune from the Dalarna region, which I first heard in the magical setting of a Christmas wedding of our good friends in North Sweden around 15 years ago. My wife hails from Northern Sweden herself, so this carol continues to be one that touches our hearts and brings back memories of that snowy night.
4. Birthday Of A King – Not one of the best-known carols maybe, but I’ve really enjoyed playing it often since I first heard it in a choir performance back in my teens. It was written by William Harold Neidlinger towards the end of the 19th century. I tried to combine the narrative of the melody with majestic and powerful chord sequences in the interlude and the end, as a homage to the newborn King.
5. Kishern Itchav – Our Armenian liturgy and folk music are rich with emotive and haunting melodies and pieces. This particular carol, composed by Alexan Mnagian, was one we learned and sang often at our school in Lebanon. The title in Armenian translates to ‘The Night Descended’ and the lyrics talk about the night of the birth of Christ.
6. In The Bleak Midwinter / For Unto Us A Child Is Born – Both music versions of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’ are beautiful, but I slightly prefer this Harold Darke version over Gustav Holst’s one. While walking our dog, Simba, during the week of the recording of this album, I came up with the idea of merging it with Handel’s ‘For Unto Us’ from ‘The Messiah’ and worked on the arrangement in my head during the rest of the walk. I enjoy these kinds of challenges and hope the result is satisfying to the ears and minds of the listeners, as they try to discover the hidden melodic phrases from both pieces in the arrangement.
7. Tzenav – I wrote this for a Christmas choral number back in 1988 in Beirut. The Armenian title translates to ‘Born’ and even though I remember rehearsing it with the singers, I have no recollection of the performance itself. It may well have been that we couldn’t perform it due to the intense civil war in those days. My wife, Anna, heard it one day recently when I started playing it on the piano. She urged me to include it in the album. So this piano version brings it back to life after so many years.
8. Kypriaka Kalanta – This is one of the authentic traditional Greek carols which is sung by carollers in Cyprus during the Christmas season. I wanted to give a taste of our island in this album through this carol, but as you can hear, I took plenty of liberties in adding some ‘twists’ and colour to it.
9. The Time Is Right – This was the theme song of an original Christmas musical I wrote back in 1994. My two younger brothers were in it and I have nice memories of putting it together and the many hours recording the backing tracks on a ‘state of the art’ multi-track cassette machine back then.
10. O Holy Night – The carol itself is a classic and performed by so many artists over the years, but in this version, I wanted a different approach to the build up in the choruses. I arranged this Christmas 2007 in Sweden, and accompanied Rebecka Eman singing it on Christmas Day. Since then, it has also been sung by other vocalists for different occasions, both as solo and duet. Here is the piano version of the arrangement.
11. Deck The Halls – I first heard this Welsh melody carol when my little sister was asked to sing it as a solo for our school’s television production in Lebanon back in the early 1980’s. More recently, I was teaching it to my Junior Choir, and during the rehearsal, it felt that they were not really ‘warming up’ to the piece. “Let’s make this more fun,” I said, to try to save the situation and started improvising the ‘funkier’ parts on the piano and guiding the choir members to do the ‘Fa la la’s with it. They got excited, came up with their own choreography and it turned out to be a very memorable number when we performed it a couple of weeks later. Here then, is that arrangement as the last piece of the album.