Today’s Christmas song is a bit of a wild one, but it’s an absolutely brilliant piece of writing. Mannheim Steamroller’s arrangement of Carol Of The Bells starts out with the classic melody but quickly jumps through so many different orchestrations, variations, and entirely new themes that you could almost call it an original piece inspired by Carol Of The Bells. It’s got bells of all kinds, a rockin’ drum beat, intense bass, and little brass fanfares sprinkled in throughout. Nearly half the piece is written in a major key, providing a great contrast to the minor key of the original.

Of course, the original carol is really repetitive, especially without words, so they had to do something to make an instrumental arrangement interesting. But it could have been terrible. It’s a testament to the brilliance of Mannheim Steamroller that all the ornaments they added work together beautifully. Turn your volume up and have a listen.

You can now get the entire series of songs as a Spotify playlist.