I need your help, Dopers, because this is driving me crazy. As usual with these types of requests, details are sketchy at best.
I’m trying to find an instrumental Christmas song that gets a modicum of airplay around the holidays. I THINK it’s a version of Carol of the Bells, but I’m not 100% sure. I don’t know the artist, but it’s similar to some of the more upbeat stuff done by Trans Siberian Orchestra or Mannheim Steamroller – although I’m 99.9% sure it’s not them.
It’s fairly orchestral in nature; at least, when I hear the snippets of the tune in my head, I can hear strings, and horns, and drums, along with possibly an electronic keyboard. It feels “big,” as opposed to a small group of people. It wasn’t recorded live, to the best of my knowledge.
It’s very stirring and exciting (at least, to me). It ends abruptly, after a series of five or six very fast-paced flourishes / stings.
I don’t know musical terms other than the standard things like “notes,” so I can’t help with nomenclature when describing it. And trying to explain the tune in text is next to impossible.
I have a CD laying around somewhere that has about 16 Carols played with all bells and no vocals, so there is just no way to narrow it down to a definitive answer.
Jasmine: I may not have been clear. The song isn’t a carol played with bells; I think it’s a version of a Christmas song titled Carol of the Bells. At any rate, it’s not terribly obscure; it’s played semi-regularly on the radio around the holidays.
I skipped to the end for both of those. I somehow managed to hit the second one in the middle of those flourishes you mentioned; with those and that ending it had to be the right one.
