From Massenet’s 1885 opera, Le Cid, these three movements are from his popular orchestral concert ballet suite of Spanish dances and showcase the technical and interpretative capabilities of brass quintet performers. Of the ten dances in the orchestral ballet suite, Castillane, Andalouse, and Catalane have been arranged to feature quintet members in solo roles with brilliant scoring and hauntingly beautiful melodic settings. The arrangement is scored for two B-flat trumpets with alternate C trumpet parts included and optional flugelhorns used in the Andalouse movement, horn in F, trombone, and tuba. The recording is of the entire edition.

See more than 70 mixed brass ensemble publications with Charles Decker Music Press at Sheet Music Plus for inexperienced to advanced musicians with music ranging from the Renaissance to contemporary new works for trios, quartets, quintets, brass choir and brass band. Many of the mixed brass ensemble editions include alternate and substitute parts being alternate C trumpet parts for B-flat trumpet parts, flugelhorn/trumpet substitute for horn, horn substitute for trombone and treble clef euphonium substitute for trombone. See also 50+ homogeneous brass group editions with Charles Decker Music Press at Sheet Music Plus for horn, trumpet and trombone ensembles. Check out the Music of Black Composers Series with Charles Decker Music Press at Sheet Music Press with 25 arrangements for mixed brass ensembles ranging from early jazz to symphonic works with composers Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, R. Nathaniel Dett, William Grant Still, Will Marion Cook, James Reese Europe, James Johnson and others.  All ensemble publications include recordings of the entire edition.  

For more Charles Decker brass quintet publications use these links to Kendor Music and Cherry Classics Music to see listings of my arrangements of music by J.S. Bach, H.L. Clarke, Debussy, Dukas, Elgar, Falla, Holst, Ives, Nestico, Rachmaninoff, Satie, and Tchaikovsky.

Higher Ground (I'm pressing on the upward way) is a 19th-century American gospel song with lyrics by Johnson Oatman, Jr. (1856-1922) and music by Charles Hutchinson Gabriel (1856-1932).

Both Oatman and Gabriel were prolific writers. Oatman, an ordained Methodist Episcopal minister employed primarily in retail and insurance work, is said to have written over 5,000 hymns and songs in the latter 30-some years of his life.  Although not a talented singer nor recognized as an outstanding preacher, he was acknowledged to have ministered to countless souls through the words of his hymns and songs.

Gabriel, a Methodist Episcopal church music director and editor of gospel song books, anthem collections, music instruction manuals, and more, is said to have written between seven and eight thousand texts and/or tunes under his own name and several pseudonyms. In addition to the music for Higher Ground, he composed the music for such well-known gospel songs as His Eye is on the Sparrow and Will the Circle Be Unbroken? 

The opening line of Oatman’s text (I'm pressing on the upward way) draws especially from Philippians 3:13-14: “Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.� Other sources include passages from the prophets Isaiah and Micah and the Psalms of Ascent (120-134). Gabriel's music cleverly evokes the upward vision of the text with an ascending arpeggio spanning an octave on the first words of the refrain (Lord, lift me up) and the matching of the highest notes of the tune to the words a higher plane.

This arrangement for brass quintet expands the meter of the tune from 3/4 to 4/4 to allow for some countermelodic call-and-response by various voices in the ensemble. Every member will enjoy a lyrical part to play in this arrangement, which is fitting as a prelude, offertory, or special musical selection in worship, and ideal as a lyrical selection on recitals. 

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