Review

Edward MacDowell
Two Duets from Woodland Sketches:

Arranged by Jamie Wehr


, United States
Publisher: Wehr's Music House
Date of Publication: 2003
URL: http://www.wehrs-music-house.com

Score and parts

Primary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 2 trombones

Edward MacDowell was a renowned pianist and composer who often introduced progressive, yet subtle changes to conventional harmony in order to paint a vivid picture of the subject matter. In 1896, while living in New York City, he composed Woodland Sketches, a set of ten short movements for piano. Jamie Wehr transcribed two movements: To a Wild Rose and In Autumn.

Unfortunately, this transcription leaves much to be desired. The first movement, To a Wild Rose, is somewhat well known. The beautiful melody is almost completely given in the tenor part. Mr. Wehr often had to leave out two, sometimes three important harmonic notes in certain chords. He always kept the “correct” or most harmonically interesting note, but the original dissonances artfully created with four or more voices are now only intervals that can sometimes be jarring to the ear and do not make harmonic sense. Also unsettling and awkward for the player and listener are odd intervals, such as tri-tones, and too many parallel motions. In Autumn is a potentially interesting and challenging dance-like movement in 6/8 meter; its challenge lies in the use of octaves and composite rhythms. An unnecessary challenge is the key, f-sharp minor, which is the original key. This key may or may not be idiomatic to the piano but it is certainly not friendly to the trombonist, especially an inexperienced one. An easy change would have been to lower the key to f minor. Harmonically, the same aforementioned issues occur here as well. 

Pedagogically, the first part is written in tenor clef and never goes higher than a1. Both movements are relatively short so tessitura is not an issue. The bass trombone part can easily be played by a tenor trombonist; the majority of the notes are in or above the staff. Aesthetically, these duets are not particularly attractive. I can’t help but think that adding just one more part would have made a significant difference. Finally, this transcription provides at least some educational value. Its possibly unintended difficulties do present a challenge to inexperienced trombonists. 

-Casey Thomas
Cornell College