31 May 2014

The Grand Christmas Music Sprint is done

"Christmas in May" is now over (as it must be, tomorrow being June the first). These past nine days, I have managed to re-build in Sibelius the scores of three Christmas pieces for choir, brass quintet, organ (& optional timpani), 145pp. of full score, total. The good news is, I still like the music.

I made a number of tweaks to Sweetest Ancient Cradle Song:  mostly, the usual drill of adding expression marks which was an aspect which was apt to slow me down when I was working with that other notation software.  Ditto with my arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen.

In I Look From Afar, some important changes, not so much re-composing, as re-distributing some of the brass lines;  in the original, I must own that several passages were just annoyingly high for the horn. In some cases, I just took a few notes down an octave, which do not reduce the charge of those passages;  in some, I switched the horn and the second trumpet lines (and, again, at need transposed some figures down an octave).  The piece remains a juicy challenge for the brass, but all the vexation has been expunged.

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