Adam Saunders: Fairy-tale Sleighride (2008)

The Season of Christmas has many overlapping traditions, both religious and secular. For Christians it is clearly the celebration of the Birth of Jesus in a stable at Bethlehem, with its theological significance of God made Man. For most, it is a time of family reunions (problematic in this year of COVID-19), the exchange of gifts and Christmas cards, eating too much, spending too much, decorated trees and fairy lights. Other religious and secular factors come into play such as Yule Logs, Mistletoe and Boxing Day Swims. 

For over 60 years I have hoped that it would snow on Christmas Day. Good deep snow, that covers the entire land or town scape. I know that this conceit is wholly selfish: what about the people who must work and travel at this time of the year? But I can dream…

I can count on one hand the number of times I recall a White Christmas. One memorable time was when I was living in Glasgow during the memorable winter of 1962/3 when snow lay across the whole of Scotland on the 25^th December.  It was a time of sledging, snowball fights, and misery, I guess, for our teachers and parents. And then, once when leaving Midnight Mass from a church in York, there was a veritable snowstorm. Everything looked perfect: Christmassy in every way. Sadly, it had thawed by the morning. So, if I am honest, any possibility of a Sleighride on this most Holy Night is very much wishful thinking - at least in the UK. But perhaps for folk living in Austria…?

The clue to enjoying this delightful short work by Adam Saunders is the prefix ‘Fairy-tale.’  For we all know that at Christmas Time wonderful things can and do happen. There is nothing challenging in this delightful piece of ‘light music’. It has been suggested that this piece could be a score for an imaginary Christmas movie. According to the Naxos CD liner notes (see below for details) the music ‘paints a picture of a magical sleighride, journeying through a fairy-tale wintry landscape.’ It does not define where this journey takes place. However, ‘en-route, various adventurous and humorous encounters take place, until finally arriving triumphantly back at home.’   It is left to the listeners’ imagination to divine what these encounters represent. For me, there is certainly a touch of romance (think Bing Crosby) and possibly a glimpse of Santa Claus driving his team of reindeers across the frosty star-spangled sky, sleigh laden with presents for the well-behaved. Here and there something a little intimidating (bad fairies or mischievous goblins trying to be good?) appears in the brass department as well as ‘comic cuts’ from the bassoon. No piece carrying this title would be complete without the percussion department’s ‘sleigh bells.’ From start to finish this little tone poem does what it says on the tin: it gives an enchanting impression of a journey most of us would like to take, but probably never will.

Adam Saunders was born in Derby in 1968 and subsequently studied at the Royal Academy of Music, where he won several prizes for musical composition.  His focus as a composer is divided between the concert hall and media including television and film.  He writes a deal of library music, which can be used by producers to give a suitable background to their screenplays.  Saunders has had works performed by leading British and European orchestras including the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Other works that have been recorded include the 'Comedy Overture' on British Light Overtures Volume 3 (ASV White Line WHL 2140), and 'The Magical Kingdom' on Dutton Epoch CDLX 7147 (incorrectly titled 'The Magic Kingdom').

Adam Saunders’s Fairy-tale Sleighride can be hears on Another Night before Christmas, Naxos 8.572744, (2011) and also on the Halle’s Christmas Celebration CDHLL7545 (2016).  Both have been uploaded to YouTube. See links above.