Par HOLLINS ALFRED. Hollins was a composer of organ music but also a virtuoso pianist and organist, despite being blind from birth. The piece is light in style, as its name suggests, but requires a fairly good manual technique and neat pedalling. A three-manual instrument is needed for really effective performance (a choir clarinet is necessary for the solo middle section). This is an attractive piece to include as a contrasting item in a recital, and would certainly be a useful addition to the repertoire of wedding music. Hollins was a composer of organ music but also a virtuoso pianist and organist, despite being blind from birth. The piece is light in style, as its name suggests, but requires a fairly good manual technique and neat pedalling. A three-manual instrument is needed for really effective performance (a choir clarinet is necessary for the solo middle section). This is an attractive piece to include as a contrasting item in a recital, and would certainly be a useful addition to the repertoire of wedding music./ Recueil / Orgue

Christmas Carol Song begins as a slightly grand adaptation of American composer C B Hawley’s Christmas Cradle Song in a dotted 6/8 rhythm to which the Adeste Fideles is added. English Organist and composer Alfred Hollins was active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Blind from birth Hollins was fortunate enough to attend the innovative Royal Normal College for the Blind outside London whose music-intensive curriculum suited his gifts. For more than forty years he was the Organist at the Free St George’s Church in Edinburgh and he travelled the English-speaking world repeatedly on concert tours.

Often known as 'the blind organist from Edinburgh' Alfred Hollins was actually born in Hull. His style of organ playing was said to be both entertaining and colourful. His own compositions are often simple in structure and radiate uninhibited joy.