Forever Christmas is the companion sheet music book for David Lanz and Kristin Amarie’s 2014 recording by the same name. Like the album, the songbook is a combination of piano solos and vocals with piano accompaniment. Most of the songs with vocals do not have the melody line in the piano part although melodic phrases are intermittent and quite a few songs have piano solo sections within them. Many of us have collections of David Lanz’s solo piano books dating back many years, but these books are different - they are the actual piano accompaniments to the vocals, not solo piano arrangements, of the songs. Of the twelve songs in the book, six are piano solos: “Winter’s Prelude,” “Jubilate,” “Snow Dance,” “La Estrella de la Navidad,” “Winter Star,” and “Heavenly Peace.” These are beautiful, heartfelt songs, but don’t expect all of them to sound like the recording as piano solos. If you have a singer or an instrumentalist playing violin or flute or another “C” instrument that can carry the melody, you will find a lot of playing pleasure in this music. The songs could also be played as two-piano or piano/keyboard duets.

Hal Leonard always does a really nice job with their songbooks with a full cover enlargement of the album cover on the front, very clear, readable notation, and a stapled binding. The books are available from Hal Leonard, Amazon, and Sheet Music Plus.

The song titles, the keys they are in, and the number of pages are listed below:

Winter’s Prelude - Key of A minor (0 sharps or flats) - 2 pages
Forever Christmas - Key of F minor (4 flats) - 9 pages
Jubilate - Key of Bb (2 flats)/ C (0 sharps or flats)/ D (2 sharps)/ F (1 flat) - 7 pages
Snow Dance - Key of G (1 sharp) - 2 pages
O Holy Night - Key of A (3 sharps) - 8 pages
La Estrella de la Navidad - Key of F minor (4 flats) - 2 pages
Sweet Winter Love - Key of A minor (0 sharps or flats)/ A (3 sharps) - 9 pages
What Is Christmas? - Key of F (1 flat) - 5 pages
Winter Star - Key of D minor (1 flat) - 5 pages
A Thousand Lights - Key of F (1 flat)/ F minor (4 flats) - 5 pages
Silent Night - Key of Bb (2 flats) - 12 pages
Heavenly Peace - Key of Bb - 2 pages