Grade 2.5
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Great for Brass, Piano keyboard parts not so great
I have this along with many other brass arrangements. For brass they are good. The big weakness is the optional piano / keyboard parts. My pianist hates the piano parts and says they appear either lifted straight from a hymnal or not written by a pianist. The mitigating
news is these parts can often been played by the brass while the pianist uses an old hymnal. Please Canadian Brass, hire a pianist to do the accompanist arrangements! -
Excellent!
I obtained these arrangements for a group of above average musicians who rarely play. Very easy to put together. Very flexible arrangements. My group of amateurs this year consists of baritone, 2 trombones, and 2 trumpets. I transposed the 2nd trumpet part for one of the trombones and had the 2 trumpets play the trumept 1 and descant parts. This created a very nice (but easily mastered) true quintet sound. (If we had more time to rehearse I would love to try some of the more advanced arrangements!)
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very useful and playable Christmas classics
I have used these arrangements in various venues and found them to be solid useful versions of these classic Christmas melodies.
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Nice Sounds for the Holidays
We have the CB Christmas Hymns after using the similar Hymn (nonChristmas) sets also. We wish they were more challenging but infact they sound good and are very useful. There are some pleasant ssurprises. Even at site they work well. With the options for multiple parts and instruments any small group can make them work. I am on my second set of each. (Sent this set to my sons brass choir)
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Imaginative carol settings
In addition to well written basic carol settings, the variation verse included for each carol greatly expands the musical potential of these well loved pieces. These appeal to informed and knowledgeable musicians.