This year, I expended most of my energy for making Christmas sets on reconstructing a couple from the previous years in the Studio 7.1.1 update, the version that tackled sound issues affecting primarily voice and acoustic instrumentation. I think the time was well-spent and that Spiritus FLY and Candlelight and Cookies for Mr. Claus sound remarkably better this time around.

With the energy remaining, I tackled the spoken word recording of Dylan Thomas reading his piece "A Child's Christmas in Wales" ... my aim was to set this short recitation to music in a way that enlarged and supported the story and turned it into more of a "radio play". The musical accompaniment includes Christmas music from guitarist John Fahey, Enya, The Barenaked Ladies, Sven van Hees, The Swing Jazz Ensemble, Yuji Ohno Trio, Pro Cantione Antiqua, and Mahalia Jackson (46bliss remix) and the running time is just under 30 mins.

For those unfamiliar with the man, here's a brief bit of bio from the Caedmon Records jacket copy:

quote:

Dylan Thomas, born in 1914, began his career as a journalist in his native Swansea, Wales. He then moved to London where he worked in broadcasting and wrote film scripts, prose and drama to earn enough money to enable him to write what he most wanted to -- poetry. He lived colorfully, even recklessly, until his untimely death in New York City in 1953. One of the 20th century's most treasured writers, Dylan Thomas was a master craftsman of poetic complexity and richly obscure imagery. Thomas's genius is made clear in this landmark records through the everlasting gift he has given the word -- his voice.

So, he died in 1953; this recording was made in 1952, and almost by accident at that ... the attempts to get him to the recording session read like a comedy of errors, and this particular piece was included at the last moment merely to fill out the disc ... it went on to become his most widely-known work.

Because many of the references within the piece are specific to Wales in the early 20th century, you may be curious about some of what you hear ... in that case, you can read along with the show using this online copy.

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