Christmas Eve Duet: “O Come, All Ye Faithful” with Cornet and Piano
Posted by glennled on December 26, 2010
Glenn Ledbetter plays his 56-year old Super Olds cornet
Know how a song pops into your mind from nowhere, seems significant, and won’t go away? Early during the last week of Advent before Christmas Day, my wife “heard” me sweetly playing “O Come, All Ye Faithful” on my cornet on Christmas Eve. So on Thursday I practiced it, and on Friday night in our living room filled with family members, I played it at a moderate beat with plenty of vibrato and careful phrasing and dynamics. The first verse was solo, and on subsequent verses, she joined in on the piano, and everyone sang.
And then we sang lots of other carols, too, from the booklet of lyrics which she self-published a few years ago. That’s part of the way we celebrate on Christmas Eve (see my post of 30 December 2009, on the duet we played last year—“O Holy Night”—and more).
Late Christmas morning, some dear relatives who were not with us on Christmas Eve came over to visit, and after some delicious treats, we repeated the performance. They arrived happy and left happy. And so, as Dickens’ Tiny Tim said, “A Merry Christmas to us all; God bless us, every one!”
Glenn's Trumpet Notes 
Nancy said
A “by ear” musician for many years, I have to own up to “hearing” this old hymn in my head a few weeks ago, played a particular way, and knowing that was how I wanted to hear it at our family gathering on Christmas Eve. You were a good sport to allow me to “direct” you to play it dolcissimo, not too fast, and with no clipped phrases 🙂 Thank you!
glennled said
Well, it’s nice to receive a request from anyone, especially you, to hear me play anything! It was fun. If we do it again next Christmas Eve, that will be three years in a row, and maybe we can start to call it a tradition. 🙂