Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Angels



Some of my favorite music of all time is Christmas music. I tend to lean away from Rudolf and Frosty and more towards the classic hymns and Mel Torme sort of stuff.

I know it sounds cheesy, but my favorite Christmas Album of all time is the Carpenters Christmas Portrait. Growing up, we used to have an old LP of it, and around this time of year we'd dust it off, drop the needle and fill the house with Karen's dreamy intoxicating voice.

I have my own piano versions of most of the classic songs.. and someday, if you tune into this blog long enough, you might get a chance to hear them all, if I can persuade my wife to sing them for me.

About 3 years ago, I noticed that I had never experimented with "Angels from the Realms of Glory". The song is always accredited to James Montgomery in 1816.. but he was the lyricist, the music was composed by Henry Smart.

So.. I dug up our old Presbyterian Hymnal and played through the song a couple of times. Then, I hit record, closed my eyes, tried not to think about the notes, but instead.. I found myself soaring through the clouds, imagining what it would be like looking down on the earth on the day Jesus was born, and hearing the Angels sing out in chorus...

Click to open music in a mini-window Angels.Mp3 (c) 2002 William Cushman (6:21 / 5.9Mb)
For just the 20 second sample, click
here.
To directly download to your computer click this icon:Click here to download a .zip file of this .Mp3 direcly to your computer
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-Bill

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

hi bill,
i like this piece a lot, it has a great sound.
thanks,
roni

William Young said...

You know, I'm all over the Carpenters disk for Christmas, but I'm not a Christmas music kinda guy, especially since working at The Department Store, where you get that vomit of commercialized music all the time.

Buy this doesn't sound like X-mas music, and since you say it is, I'd like to know where I could get more of it Maybe only because I actually like Christmas adn would like to be able to put on a soundtrack of non-standards that still sounded, well, Christmasy.

I guess I'm saying I want my Christmas music to be the stuff I don't have to hear, but want to hear, and your little version of this song goes a long way to making me realize it's out there, and I just haven't known how to look for it.

Good job, Bill. Now I know there are alternatives (and, dang, there ain't a disk of your stuff available at Target).

Maybe someday?

Anonymous said...

Hey there! I would just like to make a note that I love your music, I stumbled upon it when searching for some intro music at work. It seems this music does not fit the theme we were looking for, but I must say I personally love it. I know that in the future I will be looking into using some of this in any of the short films I produce. I greatly respect what you do on here and want to encourage you to continue and keep up the good work! Thanks a ton for your beautiful music. ;-)

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