Review

Camille Saint-Saëns
Danse Bacchanale from the opera “Samson and Delilah”:

Arranged by Angus Armstrong

brass choir and percussion

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2009
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Score and parts

Primary Genre: Brass Ensemble - 6+ brass (choir)

Angus Armstrong’s arrangement of Saint-Saëns Danse Bacchanale is an excellent work for brass and percussion. It is scored for four trumpets, including piccolo, two horns, three trombones (two tenors and one bass), euphonium, tuba, timpani, and auxiliary percussion. Armstrong is an experienced scorer for this genre who has continuously arranged music for Capital Brassworks, an Ottawa-based Canadian brass ensemble, since their formation in 1999. Donated for review by Cherry Classics, excerpts of the score, piccolo trumpet part, and audio, presumably excerpted from one of the Capital Brassworks’ performances of the work in 2002, 2006 or 2011, are available through the distributer’s website www.cherryclassics.com. 

Armstrong’s arrangement offers a faithful transcription of Saint-Saëns’ score, with only slight tempo, note, and dynamic edits to make the music more accessible for the players. The parts contain thoughtful page turns and mute cueing, although there is one awkward mute insertion for the trombonists in mm. 21-23. One minor discrepancy concerns measure 354 of the horn 1 part (fifth measure after rehearsal letter V). While Saint-Saëns’ score employs a tie in this measure, I would remove it. Armstrong does not include the tie in the trumpets, horn 2, or trombone 1 parts that play here in unison with horn 1.

This arrangement makes modest range demands of the low brass musicians while giving the euphonium player some busy passagework. First trombone and euphonium ascend to b-flat1; second trombone ascends to g1. Bass trombone and tuba descend to D and GG, respectively. While the tenor trombone parts are largely written in tenor clef, the remaining low brasses remain in bass clef exclusively. As a proven work by an experienced arranger, this is a welcome addition to the repertoire for large ensemble brass and percussion. 

-Peter Fielding
Mahidol University