IMSLP Forums

Is there a way to search for Christmas pieces for the piano with the category walker?

If not, is it possible to add a category for it?

We don't have a specific category for Christmas pieces because the term is difficult to define. Are you looking for pieces written to be performed at Christmas, or just piano arrangements of carols or festive songs? There is a category for "Carols", which would include the latter pieces.

Apart from the category walker, you might try to do a general search for "Christmas" "Weihnachts" or anything like that. It should pick up anything with those terms in the title.

@Stelz : I already did, but that's a awful way to search for if you're only looking for Christmas pieces to play on a certain instrument and that's not the only thing 'the title of a piece' doesn't always make clear that it's a piece to be played around Christmas.

@davydov: What do you mean with 'difficult to define'? Doesn't everyone know that certain pieces are played especially with Christmas and is the category walker not there to search in a easy way instead of with the 'search engine' where you can't see for which instrument certain pieces are available?

I'm sorry but I don't understand this. There is a category for Weddings but not for Christmas?

choul wrote:Doesn't everyone know that certain pieces are played especially with Christmas

Actually that's not as simple as you make it sound. To take an example, the sleigh ride movement from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kijé suite is often played at Christmas, but it was written as incidental music for a film that didn't even mention Christmas. Does that qualify as "Christmas music"? And what about works like The Nutcracker, which the action happens to take place on Christmas Eve, but the story is completely non-religious?

Would you only include vocal works that deal with the nativity story? And what about Bach's cantatas that are supposed to be played on specific dates. Is 23rd December then too early, or Epiphany (6th January) too late? These are the kinds of issues you're asking the librarians to decide on, and it's much trickier than identifying music written specifically written for the occasions of weddings and funerals.

Actually IMSLP already has a few manually-compiled lists of music on particular subjects, so maybe you or someone else would like to start one for Christmas music and see how you get on? If there's widespread agreement on the definition of Christmas music then we might be able to introduce it into the category walker.