Advent Calendar – 25th December, 2020
Merry Christmas!
Danielle and Dave’s Advent Calendar
25th December, 2020
On Christmas Night
A Miscellany of Christmas Music for Harp
by Danielle Perrett
I hope you will indulge me for saving one of the longest compositions until Christmas Day, not because it is by me but because it contains fragments of many different pieces of Christmas Music and sort of draws the whole calendar together. You are probably surprised that there is a December 25 window anyway.
As a girl, I was always disappointed that there was nothing to open on Christmas Day itself so I hope that nobody else will mind the break with tradition in our giving you all an extra window and piece of music.
Some of you may wonder at what may seem slightly unsettling harp bell like sounds in the piece (harmonics at the 12th for the people who want to be precise about these things!): they are because the story did not stop on Christmas Eve – the Cross is always behind the Nativity…
You might like to treat this piece as a sort of quiz, seeing how many of the carols you can identify. Three of the carols appear all layered simultaneously on top of each other at one point. We will let you have the answers tomorrow – so that’s Boxing Day covered, too!
Clue to get you started: one of the carols in part of this piece appeared on a previous day of the Advent Calendar just like it is here but on its own.(Some others of these carols do feature on other days, too, but in different arrangements).
Today’s piece of music becomes a multiple thank you:
Firstly thank you once again more than I can express to you all for all your caring support, cards and messages;
Secondly thank you to all those who shared and made those Christmas Carol afternoons so deeply special for me all those years ago and gave me a legacy to cherish for my whole lifetime, no matter where I find myself;
Thirdly thank you for persevering this far, whether listening avidly to each one, as many have, or just dipping into the calendar for the odd one or two.
Finally and fundamentally: a thank you for what it is all about…
It is that which links us all and unites us, even though some of us are alone today, very far apart across the world, some undergoing difficulties of many kinds.
There is a spirit which we all share and which will always be there for us if we wait quietly and listen.
Performed on David Concert Harp 2000