Hi Mark,

Thanks for the comments. I was a bit apprehensive that perhaps the reason nobody has done a long work using Christmas themes was the fear that people would be put off by hearing the dear old-familiar developed.

quote: when the rhythms interestingly got off-beat in a sort of staggered way.

Nice perception. This is very much the case during the third movement--the most scherzoistic (I can invent new words too section of the movement. The first movement is all out of whack, but I was afraid to make a mess shifting the inital attack for all staves back into an added first measure by an eigth note. Next year.

quote: The orchestration has to adapt to GM...

I still consider the limitations of midi unfortunate. There are themes played by the strings in the 1st and 4th movements that GM makes herky-jerky while they scream for legato. Part of this is my fault; for some reason I snapped the performed to notated values for all staves. Next year I can go back and RE-adjust the performed attack and duration in the measure where it's necessary.

I also wish that MS Wavetable had a better sound (or at least more comparable to the Creative synths). It would provide more GM channels for making recordings, at least.

quote: you're not suffering from musical enjoyment and creativity too much with lessor equipment

Yeah right....

I'm off now to make one last attempt at finding Audigy 2 Zs sound card, which will improve things at least 300%. Was about to order on line at Computers4sure--wouldn't you know they just discontinued it?

all best,
mgj