Where Are You, Father Christmas?

At the beginning of his path as a composer, in 1950s and 1960s, Pärt wrote many children’s songs, piano pieces, and music for plays and animated films. During those years he was involved with several children’s studios and theatres, being the piano accompanist and musical designer. Most of his music for children came about by way of direct improvisation at rehearsals and were only later given their more polished forms. Therefore, they possess the spontaneous, playful spirit amid which they were born.

Where Are You, Father Christmas? is written for Erika Tatsch’s children’s play The Lost Picture Book. Taking the stage in the play (emerging from the pages of a book that fell out of Santa Claus’ sack and into the woods) are well-known fairy-tale figures, includi…

At the beginning of his path as a composer, in 1950s and 1960s, Pärt wrote many children’s songs, piano pieces, and music for plays and animated films. During those years he was involved with several children’s studios and theatres, being the piano accompanist and musical designer. Most of his music for children came about by way of direct improvisation at rehearsals and were only later given their more polished forms. Therefore, they possess the spontaneous, playful spirit amid which they were born.

Where Are You, Father Christmas? is written for Erika Tatsch’s children’s play The Lost Picture Book. Taking the stage in the play (emerging from the pages of a book that fell out of Santa Claus’ sack and into the woods) are well-known fairy-tale figures, including Hansel and Gretel, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, the wicked witch, and many others. Both the play The Lost Picture Book and Pärt’s music composed for it were published in the 1962 collection Christmas Selection I, and were afterwards frequently performed on stage, primarily as a part of school and theatre club New Year and Christmas party programmes.