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I like the format of brass and organ from many church concerts.

Ideally the organ part is easy, so that rehearsals may be kept at a minimum. I haven't written much in this format, but working with the setting for 14-piece brass of Bach's Air started me thinking about a flexible format allowing for various constellations of players.

So far I only have written the 3 pages attached below. Formally the embellished violin solo is in the euphonium staff, the 2nd violin part is in the upper organ staff, the viola part is in the middle organ staff, and the bass line is in the organ pedal staff. I recommend the 8' bass stop being softer than the 16' stop to give the soloist a bit more free space, soundwise.

Edgy organ stops would bury the solo line, mellow organ stops may blur the rhythmic drive. So here enters one favourite instrument of mine: the classical guitar as a continuo instrument. Today there are excellent ways of amplifying that instrument should that be need. Discretion needed also in this matter. This part is optional, but there are many fine guitarists out there able to play these 4-string chords. The guitar part will have tablature as well as traditional notation.

This format also allows for a contrabass tuba playing the 16' foot bass line from the part provided with the 14-piece setting.

The solo line could be played on horn. An English horn could be given the 2nd violin part to play along with a softer organ stop (part could easily be provided).

Is this idea worth developing on?

Klaus

I can transcribe from standard notation to tablature by means of Finale. I also can check whether the position ciphers look right. But tablature doesn't give me an idea about the chord structure, so I can't tell whether the tablature pages below here are readable. Those who know tablature: Please take a look!

The organ score and the guitar part are here:

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yo ... 3%20Organ/

Klaus

Which is why those notes are cued in the octave.

Klaus

As an organist the part looks okay. As previous posters have written - no lower than CC.

I'm not sure that I would have ever written for guitars, but if you must, then the these parts should be mirrored in left hand sustained chords.

In terms of registration- mainly 8' flute tone (with subtle voix celeste if wanted), with 8' solo lines - Clarinet, Oboe or 8' solo flute stop etc.

Pedal part , as you suggest works best as 16' and soft 8' , and it is likely that most experienced organist would couple this to the accompaniment line also.

As with all organs it is very difficult to specify a registration as all stops will sound different according to the builder, instrument and acoustic. However , to avoid muddying the texture, I would suggest flute stops, avoiding diapason/principal tone, which would be too strident and detract from the solo lines.

Adding sustained chords would have no purpose at all. They would not add to the rhythmic drive, whereas they would mud up the distinct lines originally written for the 2nd violins and the violas. The intertwining lines on purpose have been allocated to each their stave/keyboard.

I agree on flutey stops for the two upper staves. The four short counter lines marked solo would work with such registration. On bigger organs with more than two manuals, I would imagine the organists almost by default would have prepared a more reedy registration on a spare keyboard for those interjections.

One matter is hammered into the heads of students of classical harmonization and orchestration: Never take the bass above any of the melodic or comping parts. On paper Bach does this often in vocal as well as in instrumental music. Not that Bach was unaware of that rule, but he always expected having the bass doubled in the 16' range. His chorales were not intended for a capella performances. They were intended for church use accompanied by an organ with 8' and 16' stops in the pedal.

Which organists of course know. Like they also will be able to see whether a bass line carries Bach's logic. The original key for the Air is D major. The lowest bass note is C#. We may discuss whether it at all is a good idea to arrange and transpose the Air for brass instruments as soloists, but players like playing it and the public likes listening to it. The transposition to Bb major makes it impossible for certain instruments to play the sequence of intervals of the bass line as written by Bach. Of course I could have clipped all notes below C and have taken them up an octave, but any organist of an adequate schooling would have been able to tell this being a mutilation of Bach's logic. By at the same time keeping the original intervals and indicating alternatives for the likely unplayable notes I have respected Bach's logic and also have respected the knowledge of style that I expect from the organists. By having immediate access to Bach's sequence of intervals the organists are given the option of adapting their own solutions of the range problems to what fits the circumstances of their local performances.

About 40 years ago the American musicologist Mary Rasmussen wrote an article criticizing the editorial practices of a then major American issuer of brass chamber music. The bass lines in those editions moved freely between being written in unison and in octaves. The purpose was about creating comfortable bass lines for the players whatever they played one of the older non-compensated baritones, a single valve bass trombone, or a tuba of whatever pitch. The right chord inversions were kept, but the composers' intended effects of wider or narrower ranges or leaps could not be read from neither the scores nor from the parts.

I am not shy of modifying ranges when the purpose is about making music performable for local ensembles not having access to whichever pitch of tuba with 5 or 6 valves. But then I mark the parts as being modified. In church performances the organist most likely is the person most talented and best educated for establishing an overview over the musical elements to be joined. If my arrangements are performed, I prefer that leadership being exercised at the optimal level of information.

Some preach: Just play the dots! Others make music on widely and deeply informed backgrounds. I am quite sure I can hear the difference.

For ease of reading and also for ease of conducting I have doubled note values and halved the length of the bars. I think Denis Wright did the same in his arrangement, but I don't have access to his setting. As for the tempo I find the pulse of 60 beats per minute as indicated by Wright and Snell being very much on the slow side. I suggest a pulse of 72 beats per minute. The Air is the slowest of the movements in the 3rd suite, but it still has the strict formal structure of the dances to follow it. And exactly the wide leaps of the bass line indicate that Bach wanted this music moving, not vegetating.

The baroque thorough bass lines could be played by organ, harpsichord, and clavichord (chords and bass line), lute and possibly other plucked strings for chords, plus viol, cello, violone, and double bass for the bowed bass line. If wind instruments were involved a bassoon was mandatory. In some church music a bass trombone may have joined the bass line.

In the setting for 14-piece brass I have written out the chord progression for 3 brasses playing quarter notes. As this setting involving organ is likely to have access to fewer brasses, I have written the chords out for guitar. Having heard Hans Martin Linde instruct a lute player to do VERY loud strumming in Brandenburg Concerto #4, I would have no qualms about hearing a dreadnought joining in on the chords. Were I to take part in a performance, I likely would let a guitarist play one of my amplified nylon string guitars with wide necks.

My goals behind the guitar part, aside of the rhythmic drive, are about avoiding parallels within the part itself. Also I have tried to avoid parallels between the bass line and movements on any string but for the lowest one. You even may find the guitar having power chords when the third is in the bass line.

Klaus