A Christmas Benediction: ‘What Child Is This’ On Piano

My performance of an inspired New Age piano arrangement

Jakub Schikaneder, Snow (Twilight in Winter), 1899. Oil on canvas.

Dear Living Dark reader,

It has been a year since I last shared any of my piano playing with you. Twelve months ago, on New Year’s Day, I shared my performance of pianist and composer David Lanz’s arrangement of “Joy to the World.” In the accompanying text, I mentioned that, after a lifetime of performing, directing, and participating in Christmas music and musicals, I was then in my fifth year of playing solely for myself, life having assumed a different shape than it formerly wore. As 2025 now draws to a close, I can report that the trend has continued. This makes year six, and I have played a great deal of piano in solitude over the months.

Today I bring you a recent recording of myself playing another arrangement from the same album. It feels appropriate that it’s Christmas Eve as I’m sharing a piece from an album titled Christmas Eve. “What Child Is This” as Lanz has rendered it is actually quite easy to play in terms of sheer technicality and the notes themselves. It does, however, require a very specific touch owing to its intensely ethereal and pensive character. In a handful of places, especially the section featuring inverted arpeggios in the final third, my interpretation diverges noticeably from Lanz’s own.

You can click the image below to hear the piece.

One thing I appreciate most about this arrangement is the space it introduces into the music. It’s filled throughout with moments of pause and reflection—a perfect tone and posture, I think, for this particular song, and also for this time of year, with the solstice having just passed, the Christmas holiday upon us, and the hibernatory shadows of winter glowing and rustling all around. I hope the music speaks to some hidden corner of peaceful, luminous darkness within you.

Warm regards,

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