SKU: A0.1003183

Brahms' Ballades were originally composed for piano, but here, set for brass ensemble. The richness of Brahms makes for a perfect match with a large brass sound and this first Ballade is both intimate and exciting. Instrumentation is: 3 trumpets, 4 horns, 3 trombones, tuba.

SKU: A0.808687

    Brahms completed Six Pieces for Piano in 1893, just four years before his death. It was the second from last work he would write for solo piano, an introspective composition that he dedicated to Clara Schumann. To four of the six pieces he attached the label Intermezzo. Although the term originally defined a composition that was inserted between two other pieces-say, the movements of a suite or the acts of an opera-Brahms wrote them as independent works. And of these, the most popular is this, the Intermezzo in A major, andante teneramente. As described on the website Favorite Classic Composers, It's a sweetly melancholy piece, with a strong tinge of melancholy.
    Except for a few items, this arrangement is not technically difficult. For the most part, Trumpet 1 plays the melody. Some of the notes are relatively high, the highest being C6 (high D for B-flat trumpet); there are several of those. Trumpet 2 has one brief A5 (high B). Trombone carries the heavy load; it has lots of oodle-oodles in the form of up-and-down eighth notes and triplet figures plus one F2. In the tuba part the range of notes is E1 to F3 and it contains a number of octave jumps. This is a beautiful piece, but it does require that each musician listen to the other four while playing.
    This arrangement was completed in 2018, and performance time runs about 4 minutes, 55 seconds. The arranger, Les Smith, would be very interested in your comments; contact him at lessmith@ufl.edu or leave a review on the SheetMusicPlus website. For more arrangements by Les, enter Sweetwater Brass Press (without the quotation marks) in the search box. (Also, purchase of this piece entitles you to your choice of another of his arrangements at no charge; send a copy of your purchase receipt directly to him at lessmith61@bellsouth.net.)