Review

Claude Debussy
The girl with the flaxen hair:

Arranged by Ralph Sauer


Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2010
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Primary Genre: Solo Tenor Trombone - with piano

Ralph Sauer offers us another useful transcription from the piano repertoire—Debussy’s beautiful and whimsical prelude La fille aux cheveux de lin. This gorgeous setting will add a lyrical dimension to a trombone recital, but it is deceptively difficult, requiring great expressiveness and control. Sauer lowers this transcription a half step but apart from that sticks closely to the original piano score. The trombone solo part is comprised of the familiar melody and the accompaniment contains the rest of the notes. The pentatonic melody remains comfortably in the middle register in its first iteration, but the transitional material in the middle traverses a much wider range, eventually rising to d2. The pentatonic melody returns, this time up one octave, beginning on a c2, before coming to a peaceful close. A well-placed measure of rest in the midst of the transitional material provides a welcome break for the performer. Obviously this transcription represents music of the highest quality. It affords the instructor an opportunity to teach lyrical styling and musical nuance to a student who perhaps has “the chops” but not “the soul.”  One could also easily envision this as an attractive encore to a professional recital—that is if you have one more d2 remaining in your tank.

-Paul Overly
Bob Jones University