Listen & tracks
3 of 22 tracks have a preview · 13 works · 62:30
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1 Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas Hugh Martin 4:56
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2 When You Wish Upon a Star Leigh Harline 6:00
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3 The Christmas Song Mel Tormé 5:30
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4 I'll Be Home for Christmas Walter Kent 6:44
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5 God Rest You Merry Gentlemen Traditional 3:45
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6 O Tannenbaum Traditional 4:07
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7 Good King Wenceslas Traditional 4:13
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8 Winter Wonderland Felix Bernard 3:10
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9 Silent Night Franz Xaver Gruber 7:19
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10 Santa Claus Is Coming to Town John Frederick Coots 3:57
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11 We Wish You a Merry Christmas Traditional 3:52
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12 White Christmas Irving Berlin 4:41
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13 Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Robert L. May 4:16
Recorded at Move Records studio in 2015, the programme moves from standards such as Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, The Christmas Song and White Christmas to carols including O Tannenbaum, Silent Night and Good King Wenceslas.
Gould’s free, unhurried approach lets each melody breathe. The result is seasonal repertoire heard as living music, not decoration alone.
In the artist’s words
This collection of songs (here without words) are pieces normally associated with Christmas. But a good tune is a good tune, so for me they should be played / heard whenever one feels like it.
Most of the tunes I remember in some form or other when I was a kid, played/sung by mum or dad on our very dodgy wooden framed upright piano. They learned and played them ‘by ear’ as they say; not one piece of sheet music in our house! But a lot of music.
My ‘hopeless’ romanticism compels me never to hurry through music, consequently these improvised versions are deliberately reflective. In that sense they invoke memories of family and friends in early years, but a reminder also that music is always a living breathing art form. Hope you always enjoy some peaceful and musical times.
Artists
Tony Gould
piano
Pianist and composer Tony Gould is one of Australia’s most respected musicians. His career has spanned jazz and other improvisatory forms as well as traditional and contemporary classical, and for decades he has stood at the forefront of music education in Australia.
Irving Berlin
composer
Irving Berlin wrote the songs that lodge in the ear and stay there: White Christmas, Easter Parade, Blue Skies, Puttin' on the Ritz. Simple, direct, and built for the heart, they still travel wherever melody is welcome.
Ernst Anschütz
composer
Felix Bernard
composer
Ralph Blane
composer
Ralph Blane (1914–1995) was an American composer and lyricist whose stage and film songs became lasting standards. His best-known work includes the seasonal classic Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
John Frederick Coots
composer
J. Fred Coots composed the melody for Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town, the 1934 song that became one of the biggest sellers in American popular music, along with hundreds of other songs and more than a dozen Broadway scores.
Kim Gannon
composer
Haven Gillespie
composer
Haven Gillespie (1888–1975) was an American Tin Pan Alley composer and lyricist, best known for the Christmas standard Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town.
Franz Xaver Gruber
composer
Franz Xaver Gruber wrote the melody of Silent Night, the Christmas carol first heard at midnight Mass in 1818. Later arrangements for organ and orchestra, with other carols and masses of his, remain in print and in Austrian church use.
Leigh Harline
composer
Leigh Harline (1907–1969) was an American film composer and songwriter, best known for his Disney scores and the song When You Wish Upon a Star.
Walter Kent
composer
Walter Kent (1911–1994) was an American songwriter whose wartime standards became lasting favourites. His best-known melodies include (There'll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover and I'll Be Home for Christmas.
Hugh Martin
composer
Hugh Martin's score for the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me in St. Louis gave Judy Garland three lasting songs: The Boy Next Door, The Trolley Song and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas, now a seasonal standard across the English-speaking world.
Robert L. May
composer
Joseph Mohr
composer
Joseph Mohr (1792–1848) was an Austrian Catholic priest and writer who wrote the words to the Christmas carol Silent Night.
John Mason Neale
composer
John Mason Neale's hymn translations and carols remain staples of English-speaking worship and Christmas repertoire, from Good King Wenceslas to O come, O come, Emmanuel and other medieval texts he brought into common use.
Richard B. Smith
composer
Mel Tormé
composer
Mel Tormé wrote the music for The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire), co-authored with Bob Wells, and more than two hundred other songs that move easily between jazz and the popular ballad.
Ned Washington
composer
Ned Washington was a lyricist of enduring popular and film songs, among them the standards The Nearness of You and When You Wish Upon a Star.
Bob Wells
composer
Digital booklet
Digital booklet Notes, texts and credits — read online or download the PDF Download the PDFPerformers
- Tony Gould · piano
Technical credits
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Venue
Move Records Studio
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Credit
Janet Ayliffe
Details
- List price
- $15.00 AUD
- Total playing time
- 62 minutes 30 seconds
- Release date
- 1 Dec 2015
- Categories
- Christmas, Keyboard
- Genres
- Christmas, Jazz & Improvised
- Musical work copyright
- © 2015 Move Records
- Sound recording copyright
- ℗ 2015 Move Records
- Catalogue
- MD 3409
- EAN
- 9314574340921
More to explore
Where have you been all these years?
Claire Patti (vocal and harp), Louise Godwin (cello) and Tony Gould (piano) join in a warm tribute to musical friendship, bringing fresh interpretive colour to traditional songs they love.
For Ever
The idea for this recording came about after the Alan Lee Quartet reunion concert on the closing night of the 2014 Stonnington Festival in Melbourne, which saw the vibraphonist in collaboration with old friends Ted Vining, Tony Gould and Derek Capewell.
…for Sonja
Dedicated to Tony Gould’s dear friend Sonja Krawatt, this album gathers traditional Jewish melodies of lasting emotional warmth. Cello and clarinet join Gould’s piano on several tracks, framing two original pieces written for her.
Seasons of Love
A jazz trio, string orchestra and guest soloists join vocalists Gian Slater and Eddie Perfect. Graeme Lyall’s rich arrangements refresh Great American Songbook standards and other stage and screen favourites.
The Other Side of Tony Gould
Tony Gould is best known as a jazz pianist and improviser. This recording turns to his classical side: original concert works written over two decades, with Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in a four-hand piano version.
Crossing Paths
Ensemble Liaison and the Tony Gould Trio take turns across the programme: each piece is heard first in a scored reading, then in an improvised jazz response that opens the same melodic and harmonic material to fresh colour.