rach3master Bravo.
Holiday Themed Recital December 2024!
rach3master That was absolutely awesome! 
I was riveted the whole way through and by the end I felt exhausted after just watching that brilliant performance.
I think the piece was originally written for an orchestra, but this arrangement was so complex that every facet of the original composition was contained within this beautiful solo piano arrangement. Your YT channel mentions that you are "an amateur" but you play like a professional, thank you so much for uploading this lovely performance.
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
Rob This one was absolutely awesome - it sounds like a studio recording of a small orchestra. Especially the descending bells made a very Christmas like feeling. You played it very evenly, this is maybe the biggest indicator there had no real instruments (guitar especially) been used. IMO real guitars would have sounded probably more uneven. Thank you for sharing your last year Christmas card, a wonderful idea.
ErnieAd What an impressive 1st post in this forum. You played a really wonderful piece. Honestly, the title "Oh Holy night" made me think about another Christmas song. A classic German one with the same title, if you translate it word-wise. Some passages reminded me of the German one, but all in all I would not have recognized it without the title. Maybe it is your interpretation and many fills, I don't know. But it is way, way more complex sounding than the classic German one I know from my childhood. I also enjoyed the follow-up pieces in your channel. Especially Silent Night was a dream to listen to. Absolutely high recognition factor of what my parents told me to be queen of all Christmas songs. I really adore, how you beefed it up with some fills.
Something else? Welcome, Ernie - welcome to PianoTell.
keff Oh - that's a nice jazzy version of a classic Christmas carol. I have the feeling that jazzing something up makes it harder to play, is it?
HeartKeys I absolutely adore, how you mix different pieces. The beginning was something very well known classic one. Satie or Debussy? Well, those two were friends and so their music style isn't that different, and I didn't have to search long. Arabesque No. 1. 
The fact you play by ear allows you to mix that nicely, I can't tell how envy I am about your talent. This is so much more valuable than the ability to read sheet music. Very well played, good ending - color me impressed!
Rob Does anyone remember the Swingle Singers?
Not me - still I liked, what I heard 
rach3master You rise the bar very high in this recital. You have an amazing speed and coordination - loved your trills. Everything was just played so very well, with so much of dynamics, so much verve and expression. I bow deep in respect - thank you for sharing.
PS: I always thought this piece is work from Johann Strauss Sohn. (Sorry - recognizing classical music is a lot of guess work for me.)
WieWaldi
Thanks for the kind words. The jazz version was harder than my arrangement I played at the start of Christmas Medley near the top of the thread but I do not think that 'jazzing something up' necessarily makes a piece harder. It could be easier because the tempo is reduced and wrong notes hidden in some of the harmonies. I tend to take the attitude that all music is hard to play and all instruments hard to learn.
I don't have anything in my repertoire that would be suitable for this thread, but one day I'd like to be able to play this song, which is from a film that often gets shown during the festive season:
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Which prompts the question @Sam - have you ever played this? I suspect I'm not the first to ask you to play it, @Sam! 
"Don't let's ask for the moon, we have the stars." (Final line from Now,Voyager, 1942)
Almost missed this thread - here is a new one I recorded a few days ago:
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Performer: WieWaldi, Bavaria (near Germany), almost 3 years of active practicing
Piece: Let It Snow (with a touch of Blues) by Jule Styne/arr. C.Fuchs
Comment Policy: Critical Comments: Anything goes!
Source of music: Sheet music linked in this YouTube Tutorial
Instrument: Kawai CN-29 (Upright Piano sample)
Recording method: Headphone-jack to PC (OBS-Studio)
Additional info: I am a bit late to the party, but I started only after this thread was created by someone, who once said: "This recitals are killing me!". And I second this! I got the sheet music on 3rd of December and thought this should be feasible until Christmas. Big mistake! This arrangement was way above my level, so I decided to learn only the 1st half - the easier half. The 2nd half is something I will probably do next year, or the year after next year, or another year later.
Sam Haha - cross post! Honestly, I missed you already. A recital without Sam? No way!
Well played - this was a real jazzy arrangement. Loved the swing and verve you put into this lovely tune. The playing was very crisp, and you brought the piece to the point. Needless to say, this is one of my absolute favorite Christmas songs.
Also loved the decoration of your music room and the video setup to capture everything!
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Source of music: original
Instrument: Kawai
Recording method: Studio One
Additional info: I posted this last Christmas on piano world but as I have only just joined pianotell seems like a good place to start. I wrote this years ago when I still had horses and chickens. As many of you from piano world probably know my house burned down three years ago a few days after Christmas so the song seemed worthy of revisting and recording.
Peyton This was a very pensive one, and so lovely played. Both versions of it. I didn't know what happened to your house 3 years ago and it does not sound good. I have the impression, you got over it and now everything is all right again. (I hope I am not wrong about it.) Your singing is on spot as in every piece you share, and I adore your videos as they are always so well rounded in terms of composing, lyrics, interpretation, singing, recording and production. Just beautiful.
Have a merry Christmas and welcome to PianoTell, Peyton!
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Performer: thepianoplayer416
Piece: The Huron Carol. Original Huron text by Fr. Jean de Brebeuf (1642) based on an old French song. The English version was by JE Middleton (1899).
Comment Policy: General Comments only: Polite, supportive, suggestions for improvement.
Source of music: arrangement from Sheet Music Plus
Instrument: Yamaha grand, P-125 & violin.
Recording method: Canon EOS M-200
Additional info: this is a hymn in church played around Christmas that originated in Canada. Specifically central Ontario where the Huron natives lived. In the 17th century France already colonized Quebec as "New France". Catholic missionaries were sent to places outside Quebec to convert the locals to Christianity.
A traditional hymn is repetitive with 3 or more verses. When you hear pieces like these performed on the radio, it is usually in an arrangement with different instruments playing solo than several verses sounding roughly the same. Here 3 instruments were used to keep the piece from sounding too repetitive.
The local church I attended this piece is in the hymn book but rarely sung. Every year the 2 pieces "O Come All Ye Faithful" & "Joy to the World" seems to be always on the list in the Christmas service.
Performer: Summer
Piece: Suite from the Polar Express
Comment Policy: Critical Comments: Anything goes!
Source of music: Musescore (Can be found here)
Additional info: I'm a day late, oh well. I love this song, and this arrangement is genuinely one of the hardest things I've played on piano. Merry Christmas everyone!
Summer- WOW! Very dramatic. Those runs, for that matter the whole piece, looks really hard. You played it fantasticly.
Peyton Thanks! I don't know how I managed those chromatic scales in this recording, I usually mess them up and this was my first recording attempt. I definitely made a few mistakes, but with the amount of octaves and awkward sections that was inevitable.
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WieWaldi Thanks. yea, it was not good at all. I lost everything i owned including my cats and my grand piano. That's why the song holds special significance for me. The pictures in the video are of the home I lost and of course the song is about the home as well. We lost the house a few days after Christmas and it has taken three years to build our new home. We actually renovated my studio which was the barn and put on an addition. It's wonderful and I have a new piano, a yamaha digital grand that I love. It's not my acoustic grand but has some bells and whistles that work really well with my song writing.
4 days later
Performer: pianocat
Piece: Auld Lang Syne
Comment Policy: All comments welcome
Source of music: Faber Piano Adventures Christmas Book 2
Instrument: Kawai K200
Recording method: cell phone with Zoom H1essential mic
Additional info:
I literally just started this piece today. I practiced/learned for roughly 90 mins, plus another 30-45 mins or so of trying to get a recording-worthy take, pausing to troubleshoot tricky passages along the way.
I just got the H1essential for Christmas, so I was eager to try it out. Today seemed like a fitting day to learn this piece. With more time, I would have tried to even out the dynamics and pedal, and make sure I was sticking to my legato fingering. But for recording it on a lark, it's pretty decent.
navindra unstickied the discussion .