Woodwind Ensemble,Woodwind Quintet Bassoon,Clarinet,Flute,Horn,Oboe - Level 2 - Digital Download
SKU: A0.1209582
Composed by Gustav Holst. Arranged by Ray Thompson. Christmas. 9 pages. RayThompsonMusic #807733. Published by RayThompsonMusic (A0.1209582).
This is my arrangement of Gustav Holst's arrangement.
It is arranged for wind quintet
The French composer Marin Marais composed the tune as a dance for his opera Alcyone of 1706, with the title Marche pour les Matelots.
The tune was subsequently included in Raoul Auger Feuillet's 1706 Recueil de contredansealong with a longways proper dance, La Matelotte, which Feuillet had himself written to go with the tune.
In 1710 John Essex (d. 1744) published an English translation of Feuillet's work called, For the Further Improvement of Dancing, in which the dance is given as The Female Saylor.
The words were written around 1860 while William Morris, then 26, was working as an apprentice in the office of the architect, Edmund Street, presumably under the persuasion of his fellow students who at that time had a taste for part-song. It became known as the Christmas Carol Masters in This Hall (alternative title: Nowell, Sing We Clear)
Ā Gustav Holst incorporated the carol into his work Three Carols H133 (1916ā17) along with Christmas Song: On this Day and I Saw Three Ships. Holst wrote the Three Carols for amateurs singing in his Thaxted festivals.
You can check out my arrangemet of this and other Marin Marais compositions here.