SKU: A0.1325401

Bring Us in Good Ale is a medieval English drinking song celebrating good drink and honoring Our Lady. For the medieval man, convivial drinking was a part of life, and drinks were enjoyed with nearly every meal. The English beverage of choice was ale. In Bring us in Good Ale the singers jocularly excuse themselves from mutton, eggs and pudding and instead stand firm in their call for their favorite drink. 

As they list all the dishes they refuse, the singers indirectly give thanks for the good season that has led to the plenty they are enjoying.

Gustav Holst arranged it for unaccompanied choir as one of his 4 carols Op.34.
It is quite short.
Arranged here for wind quintet.

Bring us in good ale, and bring us in good ale;
For our Blessed Lady's sake, bring us in good ale.

Bring us in no brown bread, for that is made of bran,
Nor bring us in no white bread, there therein is no game;
But bring us in good ale.

Bring us in no beef, for there is many bones,
But bring us in good ale, for that goes down at once;
And bring us in good ale.

Bring us in no bacon, for that is passing fat,
But bring us in good ale, and give us enough of that;
And bring us in good ale.

Bring us in no mutton, for that is often lean,
Nor bring us in no tripes, for they be seldom clean.

Bring us in no eggys, for there are many shells,
But bring us in good ale, and give us nothing else.

Bring us in no butter, for there are many hairs;
Nor bring us in no pig's flesh, for that will make us bears.

Bring us in no puddings, for therein is all God's good;
Nor bring us in no venison, for that is not for our blood;
But bring us in good ale.

Bring us in no capon's flesh, for that is often dear;
Nor bring us in no duck's flesh, for they slobber in the mere;
But bring us in good ale.

Arranged wind quintet

SKU: A0.1214466

Divertissement was composed during 2005 for the Cadence Music Ensemble and rewritten in 2010 for Bret Pimentel, a virtuoso performer on multiple woodwinds. This version was created in 2023 and is a showcase for members of the quintet. A divertissement is a multi-movement composition designed to divert, entertain or to amuse. There are six contrasting movements in this composition; Intrada (flute feature), Nocturne (Horn feature), Valse (bassoon feature), Marche (clarinet feature), Romanza (oboe feature), and Galop (spotlight on members of the ensemble). The Intrada is energetic and playful with a lot of interplay between instruments. The Nocturne, being a night piece, is both lyrical and mysterious. The Waltz is in a flowing waltz tempo with occasional shifts away from three beats in the measure. The Marche is not a piece that would be used in a parade. It is a march that exists in the mind of a child who is playing with toy soldiers; therefore there is playfulness and humor that would not occur in a functional march. Lyrical lines and expressiveness are the predominating features of the Romanza. The piece comes to a rousing close with the Galop, which is a “perpetual motion� type of movement with a lot of rhythmic variety.

SKU: A0.1024240

Geometria is a serial composition*.

Geometria, Latin for geometry, is an arrangement of sound shapes. Beginning with a parallelogram it moves to a square and then to a triangle. At the apex of the triangle the piece retrogrades back through the previous shapes; a mirror image in sound. The parallelogram is achieved by use of canon, the square by homophony and the triangle by staggered entrances.

There are 5 instruments and 5 notes; F, F#, A,C# and Bb. F#,Bb,C# form a major triad, F#,A,C# form a minor triad, A,Bb,C# form trichord 3-3, Bb,C#,F form trichord 3-11 and A,C#,F form trichord 3-12.

Therefore, 5 geometric shapes, 5 instruments, 5 notes, 5 plus harmonic possibilities and 5 players.

*Serial Music - the use of a sequence of notes in a definite order as a thematic basis for a composition and a source from which the musical material is derived.

Serialism was an attempt to escape tonal-centered compositions prior to the twentieth century. It began with Arnold Schoenberg's twelve tone-technique in the early 1900's, though some of his contemporaries such as Anton Webern, Alban Berg, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez, Luigi Nono and Milton Babbit were also working to establish serialism as a form of post-tonal thinking. Other composers such as Bela Bartok, Luciano Berio, Benjamin Britten, John Cage, Aaron Copland, Olivier Messiean, Arvo Part, Dmitri Shostakovich and Igor Stravinsky used serialism only for some of their compositions.

SKU: A0.553501

One of Beethoven's well known and popular tunes.

Arranged for wind quintet and transposed up to Bb major

I have attempted to arrange it as the composer would have done using the horn available during his lifetime.

The horn part is  therefore written for natural horn in Bb basso.  (I  also enclose a horn in F part.)

The Bb basso part is there for your horn player's delight!! (or not!!)

I have taken some sympathetic liberties with the broken chords and added other notes of a sustaining nature.

I have changed some of the bars containing triplet semiquavers to give a less heavy feel.

I feel this gives a better classical sound

Check out my other Beethoven arrangements (mostly for wind quintet, but some string quartet) : various Piano Sonata mvts, Symphony movts, Turkish March, Fur Elise, Trio and Sextet

SKU: A0.839017

Orfeo ed Euridice (French: Orphée et Eurydice; English: Orpheus and Eurydice) is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck, based on the myth of Orpheus and set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing. The piece was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 5 October 1762, in the presence of Empress Maria Theresa. Orfeo ed Euridice is the first of Gluck's reform operas, in which he attempted to replace the abstruse plots and overly complex music of opera seria with a noble simplicity in both the music and the drama. The opera is the most popular of Gluck's works, and was one of the most influential on subsequent German operas. Variations on its plot-the underground rescue-mission in which the hero must control, or conceal, his emotions-can be found in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Beethoven's Fidelio, and Wagner's Das Rheingold. Though originally set to an Italian libretto, Orfeo ed Euridice owes much to the genre of French opera, particularly in its use of accompanied recitative and a general absence of vocal virtuosity. Indeed, twelve years after the 1762 premiere, Gluck re-adapted the opera to suit the tastes of a Parisian audience at the Académie Royale de Musique with a libretto by Pierre-Louis Moline. This reworking was given the title Orphée et Eurydice, and several alterations were made in vocal casting and orchestration to suit French tastes.