Celebrate a year of holidays, and add a musical flavor to your celebrations with these 40 tunes arranged for two players. Some of the tunes even have lyrics to enhance the fun.
This collection includes festive music for Chanukah, Christmas, Cinco de Mayo, Easter, Father’s Day, Flag Day, Grandparents Day, Groundhog Day, Halloween, Independence Day, Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Mother’s Day, New Year’s Eve, Passover, Patriots Day, Presidents Day, Purim, Rosh Hashanah, St. Patrick’s Day, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day, Veterans Day, and Yom Kippur.
Duo arrangements of the tunes in this collection, in the same keys, are available for soprano recorders, alto recorders, violins, violas, cellos, basses, and mandolins.
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“La Adelita” (Cinco de Mayo) “Adir Hu” (Passover) “Amazing Grace” (Easter) “America the Beautiful” (Independence Day) “Ask My Father” (Father’s Day) “Auld Lang Syne” (New Year’s Eve) “Avinu Malkenu” (Rosh Hashanah) “Battle Hymn of the Republic” (Memorial Day) “Day Dawn” (Christmas) “Dayenu” (Passover) “Did You Wash Your Father’s Shirt” (Father’s Day) “Easter Sunday Jig” (Easter) “Grandfather’s Clock” (Grandparents Day) “Grandmother Song” (Grandparents Day) “Groundhog” (Groundhog Day) “Hail to the Chief” (Presidents Day) “Halloween Strathspey” (Halloween) “Hop Mayne Homentashn” (Purim) “In the Hall of the Mountain King” (Halloween) “Kol Nidre” (Yom Kippur) “L’Shana Tova” (Rosh Hashanah) “Let Me Call You Sweetheart” (Valentine’s Day) “Mama Don’t Allow” (Mother’s Day) “Maoz Tzur” (Chanukah) “My Country, ’Tis of Thee” (Patriots Day) “My Yiddishe Momme” (Mother’s Day) “New Year’s Eve” (New Year’s Eve) “Over the River and Through the Woods” (Thanksgiving) “Oy Hanukkah, Oy Hanukkah” (Chanukah) “Rachamono” (Yom Kippur) “Saint Patrick Was a Gentleman” (St. Patrick’s Day) “Saint Patrick’s Day” (St. Patrick’s Day) “Song of the Volga Boatmen” (Labor Day) “Star Spangled Banner” (Veterans Day) “That’s Amore” (Valentine’s Day) “The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy” (Christmas) “We Gather Together” (Thanksgiving) “We Shall Overcome” (Martin Luther King Jr. Day) “A Wicked, Wicked Man” (Purim) “You’re A Grand Old Flag” (Flag Day) |
As is typical of Deborah Greenblatt’s work, the arrangements of pleasing tunes are well done and accessible to a diverse audience of recorder players.
The publisher continues the practice of printing with unpretentious colored covers (pink for the Holiday Tunes). The table of contents is printed on the outside front cover. The binding is a nice spiral, enabling the music to lie flat on the stand.
Both the soprano and alto versions of each piece have the same key signature. Therefore, the alto volume consists of the same music as the soprano but is, for the most part, written up an octave. There are a few exceptions in which the alto parts are given on the same pitch level as the soprano. The practical effect is that much of the alto music is set in the upper register of the instrument, which offers something of a challenge even for more experienced players. The intention is to enable groups with both soprano and alto players to work together.
Page turns are generally avoided by the insertion of blank pages. Spacing on the pages and between staves makes for overall clarity with regard to pitches and other markings. (It is a pet peeve of mine to play from crowded staves that make it difficult to identify pitches that involve ledger lines — no problem with that here.)
There are no difficult keys. Chromatic notes are found, and in a few cases, they are a bit challenging. For example, in the alto part of “In the Hall of the Mountain King” in Holiday Tunes, we find successive G# and A# as well as E#. There are also sharps in the grace notes in several measures.
These editions are accessible to intermediate players. Rhythms are generally straightforward. The textures are a mix: artfully arranged polyphony or homophony, and some in which one line carries the melody and the other serves an accompaniment function.
While some tunes are short and simple, others are longer and more elaborate. Some are composed of a melody and variations, in which the voices cross registers and trade the melody back and forth. While most of the pieces are not difficult, there are several that present more of a challenge, and thus can appeal to more experienced players. Because of the skillful arrangements, they would be very effective in concert performances.
This edition would make for great additions to one’s recorder library. Because they contain a mix of easier and a bit more challenging pieces that are pleasingly arranged, they offer less and more experienced players both a challenge and an opportunity to play simply for the enjoyment of the music.
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