Brass Ensemble - Level 3 - Digital Download SKU: A0.808686 Composed by Jean-Paul-Égide Martini (1741–1816). Arranged by F. Leslie Smith. Classical,Holiday,Love,Wedding. Score and parts. 23 pages. Sweetwater Brass Press #3689775. Published by Sweetwater Brass Press (A0.808686).     This is one of the most beautifully arranged short pieces in the Sweetwater Brass Press catalog.   Jean-Paul-Égide Martini wrote Plaisir d'amour in 1784. He took the words from a poem that appears in Célestine, a short novel by Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian. The poem begins, Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment (The pleasure of love lasts only a moment). Over the years, Martini’s melody has proved popular with other composers, including Hector Berlioz and Louis van Waefelghem. Two relatively recent songs that made use of the plaintiff refrain are the Christian hymn, My God Loves Me and the song Can't Help Falling in Love, which was performed by Elvis Presley in the film, Blue Hawaii.    This arrangement is not technically difficult, but it does require discipline and interpretation. As in the original, there are two key changes, F to A-flat and then back to F.  The time signature has been changed from Martini’s 6/8 to ¾ but retains all relative note values. Trumpet 1 plays the melody with occasional harmony from Trumpet 2. Horn in F provides arpeggio accompaniment throughout most of the song, with some help from Tuba and Trombone. With respect to high and low notes: Trumpet 1 has one A5 grace note (to a G5 quarter note); Trumpet 2 has three above-staff quarter notes in a row, A5, B5 and A5; Trombone has one F4; and Tuba has a number of F1 notes and one section of octave jumps involving F2 to F3 and A2 to A3.   This arrangement was completed in 2018, and performance time runs about 3 minutes, 51 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 SheetMusicPlus search box.

Brass Ensemble - Digital Download SKU: A0.934066 Composed by John Dowland. Arranged by Matthew Parunak. Contemporary. Score and parts. 37 pages. Matthew D. Parunak #3087073. Published by Matthew D. Parunak (A0.934066). Galliard Battaglia (The Battle Galliard) arranged for 10 piece brass band and Timpani.

Brass Ensemble - Level 3 - Digital Download SKU: A0.808703 Composed by Guy d'Hardelot (1858 – 1936). Arranged by F. Leslie Smith. Holiday,Romantic Period,Spiritual,Wedding. Score and parts. 18 pages. Sweetwater Brass Press #6072651. Published by Sweetwater Brass Press (A0.808703).      This song is a great piece to play for a general concert. But it really shines in matrimonial settings. The fact is: No wedding is complete without the performance of Because.     Helen Guy, the daughter of an English sea captain and a French singer, was born at Château d'Hardelot in France. She entered the Paris Conservatory at age 15, and in her early 20s composed a musical setting for Victor Hugo’s Sans toi, which gained some popularity. She composed over 300 songs using the name Guy d'Hardelot. She was also a noted piano accompanist. After marrying W.I. Rhodes, she settled in London and taught singing. As a composer, she is best remembered for Because (Parce Que), for which she wrote both the music and the French words. It was first published in 1902 with English lyrics by Edward Teschemacher and has since been recorded many times by many different artists.     This arrangement was derived from the 1902 Chappell & Co. score in C major for piano and voice. For the most part, however, the musical setting is original and different. Throughout most of the piece, Horn in F carries the melody with Trombone and Tuba providing an arpeggio accompaniment. Trumpets 1 and 2 play a syncopation figure for the opening and the end but during the majority of the arrangement they provide an antiphonal response to the melody. The opening is marked Poco Adagio with a suggested metronome setting of 76, but the tempo does vary rather frequently. All notes are well within the range of each instrument; e.g., B-flat Trumpets’ highest note is G at the top of their staff, while Tuba’s lowest note is A below the staff. All-in-all, this arrangement is a beautiful and poignant setting for an old favorite, a real crowd pleaser.     Completed in 2020, performance time for Because runs about 3 minutes, 22 seconds. The arranger, Les Smith, will be happy to provide substitute parts (for example, treble clef baritone for trombone) at no charge; contact him directly at lessmith61@bellsouth.net. 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.)

Brass Ensemble - Level 3 - Digital Download SKU: A0.808687 Composed by Johannes Brahms (1833-1897). Arranged by F. Leslie Smith. Holiday,Romantic Period,Wedding. Score and parts. 28 pages. Sweetwater Brass Press #3872461. Published by Sweetwater Brass Press (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.)

Brass Ensemble - Level 3 - Digital Download SKU: A0.808676 Composed by Scott Joplin (1868–1917). Arranged by F. Leslie Smith. 20th Century,Film/TV,Folk,Holiday,Love,Ragtime. Score and parts. 20 pages. Sweetwater Brass Press #3213035. Published by Sweetwater Brass Press (A0.808676).     Marvin Hamlisch’s score for the 1973 movie The Sting revived interest in ragtime music. Ragtime, of course, is music, often in march-time, that features syncopation, a ragged beat. It originated in African-American districts of large cities and first flourished during the period, 1895-1918. One of the most successful ragtime composers was Scott Joplin, known as the King of Ragtime. Hamlisch used several Joplin compositions as background music for the George Roy Hill-directed film, and one of those was this beautiful and contemplative 1909 composition, Solace: A Mexican Serenade.     In All Music Guide to Classical Music: The Definitive Guide to Classical Music (Woodstra et al., ed., CMP Books: 2005), Blair Johnston called Solace a musical hybrid neither authentically Mexican nor authentic ragtime. It is, instead, a habanera, but also a very lovely piece of Americana.    This brass quintet arrangement of Solace was adapted from the Joplin piano score. Like the score, this arrangement is in 2/4 time and contains a lot of 16th notes. Joplin’s tempo instruction, however, is Very slow march time, and the metronome marking suggests 96 eighth notes a minute, so in reality the actual tempo is an andante 4/8. Trumpet 1 has some B-above-the-staff notes in the last section, Trumpet 2 has a few interesting rhythmic figures in section B; Trombone has 3 or 4 F-above-the-staff notes, and Tuba plays a couple of top-of-the-staff A’s in section D and at the very end. Plus, of course, the piece is syncopated.    Completed in 2017, this arrangement runs about 6 minutes, 10 seconds. Contact the arranger, Les Smith, at lessmith@ufl.edu; he would be delighted to hear from you. For more arrangements by Les, enter Sweetwater Brass Press (without the quotation marks) in the SheetMusicPlus search box.

Brass Ensemble - Level 4 - Digital Download SKU: A0.808688 Composed by Henry Clay Work (1832-1884). Arranged by F. Leslie Smith. Children,Folk,Holiday,Patriotic. Score and parts. 31 pages. Sweetwater Brass Press #4111581. Published by Sweetwater Brass Press (A0.808688).     Henry Clay Work, Civil War era song writer and abolitionist, composed Kingdom Coming in 1862. Chicago’s Root & Cady published it in April of that year, Christy’s Minstrels premiered it and it became enormously popular.    The lyrics to Kingdom Coming, also known as The Year of Jubilo, were written as though slaves in the Confederacy were celebrating their upcoming freedom. However, the song was actually released eight months before President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Interestingly, Kingdom Coming also gained popularity in the South. A Southern edition was published in August in 1864, and the song remained a favorite in the former Confederacy for some years.     Kingdom Coming has been used as theme or background music in a number of film, television and radio settings. Almost certainly its most popular iteration in modern times was the Sauter-Finegan Orchestra’s 1952 recording under the title Doodletown Fifers.    This arrangement is a show-off piece for each member of the quintet. It moves along at a brisk pace of about 108, begins in the key of C and changes to A-flat, then B-flat. The first time through the melody, all instruments perform ensemble. Each succeeding repetition features an instrumentalist, starting with tuba and working up to Trumpet 1. The piece ends with another ensemble version.    There are no exceptionally out-of-normal-playing-range notes: Trumpets 1 and 2 both play their B-flat below the scale several times, and Trumpet 2 plays G below the scale; Horn in F also plays its G below the scale; Trombone’s range is G at the bottom of the scale to D above the scale; Tuba’s lowest note is A-flat below the scale. Trumpet 1 will probably triple tongue its repetition of the melody, and some triple tonguing may be called for near the end of the piece for Trumpets 1 and 2 and Trombone.    This arrangement was completed in 2018, and performance time runs just under 4 minutes. The arranger, Les Smith, would be very interested in your comments; contact him at lessmith@ufl.edu. For more arrangements by Les, enter Sweetwater Brass Press (without the quotation marks) in the SheetMusicPlus search box.

Brass Ensemble - Level 3 - Digital Download SKU: A0.817619 Composed by James Bland. Arranged by F. Leslie Smith. Folk,Spiritual,Traditional. Score and parts. 28 pages. Sweetwater Brass Press #424503. Published by Sweetwater Brass Press (A0.817619).      James Alan Bland, composer of “In the Evening by the Moonlight,” was a prolific song writer.  He is said to have created the words and music for more than 600 compositions.  Born in 1854 to a free African American family in Flushing, New York, he made a name for himself as musician, composer and minstrel performer.  Among his compositions were “Oh, Dem Golden Slippers,” “In the Morning in the Bright Light” and “De Golden Wedding.”  His most famous song by far was “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny,” which the State of Virginia used as its official anthem for over 50 years.      Bland, in keeping with his persona as a minstrel, wrote the lyrics to “In the Evening by the Moonlight” in dialect.  Years passed and sensitivities changed, but the song’s poignant melody and basic sentiment survived.  Latter day recordings, such as those by Bing Crosby and the Ray Charles Singers, dropped the dialect and objectionable terms.  One of the most notable versions was by singer, pianist and civil rights activist Nina Simone, released in 1960 on the album Nina at Newport.      This brass quintet version begins with the group instrumentally humming along under an eight-measure Horn in F introduction.   The first statement of the melody initially takes the form of a partial call-and-response between a Trombone/Horn duo and Trumpet 1, then switches to an exchange between Trumpet 1 and Tuba.  Next, the melody is repeated but in a rhythmic pattern reminiscent of the 1880 tune “Here Dem Bells”; Tuba plays counterpoint.  Third time around, the melody is presented almost exactly as Bland wrote it and as Hitchcock’s Music Store published it in 1880.  Finally, the tempo slows and the melody is presented as so many have sung it around campfires at YMCA, 4-H and other youth camps all over the country:  softly and tenderly.  The arrangement ends with a brief recapitulation of the introduction.      There are no really difficult or tricky rhythms in this arrangement.  Trumpet 1’s highest note, which occurs in Section D, is A above its staff; Tuba’s lowest, G below the staff.  Otherwise, there are no exceptionally high or low notes.  The piece opens in the key of F major then, about halfway through, changes to G major.  Tempo opens with a suggested MM of 104, speeds up to 120, slows to 66, increases again to 122 and finally slows to 66.      Completed in 2022, performance time runs about 4 minutes, 22 seconds. The arranger, Les Smith, will be happy to provide substitute parts (for example, treble clef baritone for trombone) at no charge.  He would also like to receive your suggestions, comments, corrections and criticisms.  Contact him directly at lessmith61@bellsouth.net.  For more arrangements by Les, enter "Sweetwater Brass Press" (without the quotation marks) in the SheetMusicPlus or Sheet Music Direct 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.)

Brass Ensemble - Level 3 - Digital Download SKU: A0.767279 Composed by Claudio Monteverdi. Arranged by Mike Lyons. Baroque,Renaissance. Score and parts. 38 pages. Lyons Music Services #3218699. Published by Lyons Music Services (A0.767279). As part of my continuing project to transcribe Monteverdi's madrigals onto winds, here is the 6th book. In this book we see a much greater development towards dramatic representation. In a way, this book is divisible into two Scenes with a number of single items in between. The vocal lines are all much more complex and we can also see the beginnings of monodic writing appear in the semi-recit sections of some of the songs. Also clearly developing are delineations of the voices into soloists and chorus. Several songs in this book are almost akin to arias, with clear soloistic writing for the higher voices (Cantus/Tenor). The first four songs form a kind of introductory 'scena', which Monteverdi calls Lamento d'Arianna. A little later, there is a set of 6 songs which he grouped together under the title Sestina. This song, No 10 starts with the line Here Tirsi laughed and wriggled under the two(twin?) stars of the beautiful Clorinda I think you get the picture! We can see plenty of musical laughing and wriggling in the music with dotted rhythms and semiquaver runs. The top two voices are Clorinda (doing a fair amount of wriggling herself) while the bottom two take the part of Tirsi. There are places where all four voices give vent to an exclamation and where, presumably, the two lovers had to stop for breath! The original incorporates a very basic continuo part, which I have shared between the resting voices. As with all things madrigalian, the lyrics are rife with double entendres.

Brass Ensemble - Digital Download SKU: A0.999624 Composed by Marc Goris. 20th Century,Children,Contemporary. Score and parts. 158 pages. Brassery Publications #6029565. Published by Brassery Publications (A0.999624). ‘Mowgli et la Meute des Loups’ raconte comment un jeune enfant élevé par des loups dans un milieu souvent hostile devient un jeune homme adulte.  C’est un peu ‘Pierre et le Loup’, sauf qu’ici les animaux sont plus durs, plus sauvages, moins prévisibles.  L’histoire est toujours passionnante et souvent drôle. L’histoire traîte de différents thèmes tels que la formation de l’identité, la confrontation avec l’étranger, l’anxiété  et la sécurité.  Il y est question de respect, de séparation, d’adieu, mais aussi de la gaminerie des jeunes et de la sagesse des panthères. Le texte et la musique s’unissent pour évoquer cette histoire.  â€˜Mowgli et la Meute des Loups’ n’est pas un monologue avec accompagnement musical, c’est un conte où l’image, le texte et la musique se renforcent l’un l’autre.…Musique :  Marc Goris Texte original néerlandais :  Jos Dom Traduction : Maggy Peré, George Georis Adaptation du texte : Bruno Georis   partitions disponible sur demande, à commander via info@brassery.be plus d'infos : https://brassery.be/accueil/production/mowgli-et-la-meute-des-loups.html sur bandcamp : https://brassery.bandcamp.com/album/mowgli-et-la-meute-des-loups-un-conte-musical-pour-quintette-de-...