If you’ll recall from my post from September 30th of this year about the arrangement of Anton Bruckner’s 6th Symphony, I’ve been busy arranging music for Concert Band / Wind Ensemble. I’ve continued this with a piece written by Johann Sebastian Bach in the early 18th century, “Prelude No. 7 in Eb Major” from “The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1.” This piece was brilliantly adapted for Robert Moog’s Moog Synthesizer by Wendy Carlos on 1968’s groundbreaking record release, “Switched-On Bach.” It was this record (an 8-track tape, actually) that caught my attention all those years ago.

I tried to arrange the Prelude for marching band back in the early 1980s, but was unable to pull it off. The manuscript sat in a drawer, neglected, for around 40 years or so while I studied and worked on other things. As I said in my Bruckner post, the acquisition of Dorico Pro has made many things possible for me, including taking another shot at the Prelude. This time, however, I would write my arrangement for Concert Band / Wind Ensemble.

The new version crossed the finish line around October 9th, 2023 or so. I’ve spent the time since putting together the physical stuff, like the printed score, a USB key with the PDF parts, and so on. I’m now at the point where I need to get it performed by a real-life ensemble. I’m beginning the process of contacting ensembles now, but I could certainly use some help. If you know of an ensemble that might like to perform the Prelude, drop me a line on the Contact page!

If you need any help in convincing someone, just point them to the SoundCloud page where the audio example of the Prelude can be found. Here it is:

Finally, on another note, thank you all for your support during the recent GRAMMY® campaign for “Lady Tygress’ Suite: 1. Intro.” I received several very positive comments about the song, which makes me think that I’ll probably get more than just my own vote for it this year. 😉

I hope you enjoyed that Heavy Metal interlude, because we’re going back to Classical for a bit.

I’ve been very busy with a program called Dorico Pro. It’s a music engraving program that lets you prepare professional-looking sheet music and scores. I’ve taken several of my much older pieces of music that I’ve meant to do something with one day and I’ve finally done something with them, inputting them into Dorico and getting scores and parts. One woodwind quintet is in the hands of an ensemble, who has played through it already! (They’ve got some work to do, so no, I won’t be releasing the recording.)

The most ambitious work I had on my back burner was an arrangement of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6, 1st Movement, for Concert Band / Wind Ensemble. Mr. Bruckner is the gentlemen in the portrait that comes with this post (said portrait in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons). I first bumped into his Sixth Symphony, 1st Movement in 1988, while waiting to get into one of the performances during Drum Corps International’s World Championships week in Kansas City, Missouri. My wife and I heard it on a classical radio station (she no longer remembers, but she urged me to arrange it). 

My first goal was indeed to arrange it for Drum and Bugle Corps, then for marching band (I may still do that one day). However, once I had Dorico, I decided to go the whole nine yards and do a fully-faithful arrangement of the piece for Concert Band / Wind Ensemble. I did not “simplify” anything about the original work: it’s still in the key of A, it’s still in its original meter, most of the original accidentals are retained, and very few other things have been changed aside from the fact that there are no strings in this arrangements (my apologies to the Saxophone section in advance).

I have rendered a recording through NotePerformer 4 and posted it on Soundcloud. Please go to the following link if you want to hear it:

https://tinyurl.com/y263tn6f

I would appreciate your feedback on this after you hear it. Please leave a comment below.

My next job, of course, is to get an ensemble to play it. I’ve got some ideas. If you’re reading this and you have ideas, contact me!

Thank you for reading!