Carey Blyton wrote two versions of The Christmas Spirit (both published by Fand): one for two equal voices and piano and the other for choir (SATB) and string orchestra. Although both versions work well in themselves, their scoring is a little specialised, and Fand felt that there was a strong case for producing an amalgam of the two versions in order to maximise the appeal and ease of performance of the work. Therefore, Richard Hallas has created this arrangement for four-part choir (SATB) and piano.
The music is still authentically Blyton’s: the new arrangement essentially just takes the SATB choral part from one of the original Blyton versions and combines it with the piano part from the other. Aside from the resolution of a few minor musical inconsistencies, and some editorial optimisations, the music is fundamentally the same across all three scorings. Thus, this new version for four-part choir and piano can either be presented in a full concert performance as an authentic Blyton work in its own right, or may alternatively be used as a rehearsal score when learning the version with string orchestra, prior to the string players being available.
