Thanks to an extraordinarily talented and generous Keepa reader, who shall be known for the time being only as “Phantom of the Chapel,” we can now hear beautiful sound recordings of the pieces posted on our early Advent calendar. This post will be updated in about a week with additional audio files, and I’ll update past posts to include individual recordings.
Thank you, Phantom, more than I can say.
Clicking on a title will take you to the post with the sheet music. Clicking on “audio” will, well, play the audio file.
Introduction
“All Hail the New-Born Year,” Parley P. Pratt, George Careless — audio
“Bethlehem’s Song of Triumph,” B.H. Winslow, Alfred M. Durham — audio
“A Child’s Merriest Christmas,” Lula Greene Richards, Willy Reske — audio
“Christ Is Born, the Joyful Story,” Evan Stephens — audio
“Christmas Babe,” Frances K. Taylor — audio
“Christmas Bells,” George Hugh Thomas — audio
“Christmas Carol,” Mildred Tanner Pettit — audio
“Christmas Carol,” Willy Reske — audio
“Christmas Eve,” Myles B. Foster — audio
“Christmas is Coming,” Hazel Washburn, Lorenzo Mitchell — audio
“Christmas Night,” Inez R. Preece, Inez Jean Preece — audio
“Christmas Song,” Evan Stephens — audio
“Dear Little Stranger,” Charles H. Gabriel — audio
“The First Christmas Night,” Moselle Renstrom — audio
“Glory Be to God,” Evan Stephens — audio
“The Holy Child,” Mildred Tanner Pettit — audio
“In the Star-Light,” Mary Hale Woolsey, Robert Sauer — audio
“Mortals Awake! with Angels Join,” Samuel Medley, John Rippon — audio
“Sing the Sweet and Touching Story,” Emmeline B. Wells, George Careless — audio
“A Stranger Star,” Orson F. Whitney, Evan Stephens — audio
“A Stranger Star O’er Bethlehem,” Orson F. Whitney, Edwin F. Parry — audio
“To the Land of Judea,” Frances K. Taylor — audio
“We Must Adore Thee,” Willy Reske — audio
“When Christ Was Born in Bethlehem,” Ebenezer Beesley — audio
“While Shepherds Watched,” Frank Moore Jeffrey — audio
“The Wrinkled Brow of Time,” Orson F. Whitney, Samuel B. Mitton — audio
Thank you, Ardis and Phantom. I lack the skill to play these anywhere near the right speed. Hearing them as they were meant to be heard is delightful.
I’m stealing time away from what I’m supposed to be doing listening to these, so I’ll have to finish later.
Very nice, Phantom. Organ too! I’m enjoying listening to each one. Thanks.
Me likey! Thanks for this, Ardis. It’s fun to hear the audio files while at the same time following the sheet music.
Music has a special ability to transport me back in time. Hearing these pieces, I can imagine sitting in the parlor of a Mormon home in turn-of-the-century Salt Lake City, while Aunt So-and-So plunks out the piece on the piano or reed organ.
I look forward to hearing the rest. Thanks!
Glad you’re enjoying them. I’ve played them very softly again just now, even though I’m sitting in the library. If people can yak on their cell phones and have loud conversations while they’re touring, they can jolly well put up with my beautiful little recordings.
I should acknowledge Hunter for having had the idea to make recordings in the first place, back on the first or second Advent post. He was willing to record them himself, but wasn’t satisfied with the quality of a hand-held digital recorder. Phantom had access to more professional equipment and ran with Hunter’s suggestion.
Excellent. Thank you!
Wonderful! What a lovely collection!
Technical note: I’m using a Mac, so the sound files didn’t play when I clicked on them. I had to right click on my mouse and save the files to my desktop before I could hear them. But the extra step was certainly worth it. They’re great! Thanks, Phantom.
Very cool. Thanks.
Muchas Gracias, Phantom!
Wow. Thanks to both of you for making this happen.
(So, does anyone want to get a group together to sing and record w/ vocals?) 🙂
You find someone to do that, m&m, and I’ll post your recordings faster than you can sneeze.
Fantastic!
m&m, I’m game! I always miss singing with my parents, siblings and cousins (most of whom live in Phoenix) around Christmas time. I’m in Seattle, but I’ve recently been wondering how hard it would be to get a good recording of people singing together from different locations via the internet. Hmmm…
Thanks to Phantom. These renditions are beautifully done. I especially liked the contrast between the piano and organ. I kept thinking I was going to make copies of the music and see how they sounded, but have had too many things going on. Thanks to Hunter for the suggestion. And Ben, would it really be possible for us to sing over the internet from many locations, or are you just dreaming out loud?
These are fantastic! I especially like “Bethlehem’s Song of Triumph”, which has a really lovely and unusual melody (for an LDS hymn, anyway ;-). Applause to Phantom and Ardis for this post.
I think that I was most interested to listen to the music for “A Stranger Star.” It struck me as rather melancholy.
Aw, shucks! Thanks, everyone for the kind words. It was a pleasure to tickle the ivories for Ardis. Hope to be able to do it again.
And now, back to organ practicing . . .
Ardis, I want to thank you for this post. I like it a lot.
I’ve so enjoyed this Advent series, but I kept being too lazy to print off the songs and go to my piano. Thanks for getting the audio files up, Ardis and Phantom!
Emily, Phantom has just sent me a bushel more — all the upcoming Advent posts, and some music posts for the coming months. Woot!
Thank you!