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My arrangement of Beethoven's 9th, 4th Movement
4 years ago
General
Thank you for taking the time to read this.
I had to use a journal for it because the audio file was too large for FA.
Every year, members of the community combine with the students of my alma mater, MSSU (Missouri Southern State University) to form the Southern Symphonic Chorus, and alongside the Southern Symphony Orchestra, we perform beautiful orchestral works from Beethoven's 9th to Orff's Carmina Burana, and everything in between or of a similar nature. Performing these great masterworks does a great service to my hometown of Joplin, MO, in that it brings class to what some folks claim would otherwise be a classless town. (I'm not so sure about that, but that's what the people have said so in the past about it.)
In 2018, the masterwork was Beethoven's 9th Symphony, and the instrumental rehearsal track I've done here is just the fourth movement. This was a bit daunting to do because MuseScore kept crashing on me, but my policy is that if I've sang it, I'll do a track like this of it. I doubled up on the instruments, however, because in each pair, the top line represents the soloist, while the bottom line represents the chorus. However, this was written with both parts, so I modified accordingly.
Using my usual system, this is for:
2 alto saxophones (top line solo; bottom line chorus, with soprano on top, and alto on bottom)
2 tenor saxophones (top line solo; bottom line is playing the same as alto but one octave lower)
2 baritone saxophones (top line solo; bottom line chorus, with tenor on top and bass on bottom)
2 glockenspiels (top line solo, bottom line is playing same as baritone sax but in treble clef)
2 vibraphones (playing same thing as baritone saxophone but in treble clef)
Marimba and piano (both playing accompaniment)
This arrangement © me and me alone
Original music is public domain
This is my longest score to date.
I normally put all my scores in concert pitch, because I don't know how to read music otherwise, but I forgot to do so here. If you're wondering why the key signatures don't match. that's why.
Here's the performance; mind you it has the whole symphony.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO0jIDtPfdc
There is no chorus part until the last movement. I can only imagine what the scene of the debut looked like, since the legend goes Beethoven was deaf, and thus, was still conducting when the piece was finished.
If you want to look for me, I'm in the third row just to the left of center.
The other projects I've done with this ensemble include Orff's Carmina Burana, and three requiems: one by Mozart, one by Brahams, and one by John Ritter (which my director loves because he sang it once with Ritter himself conducting). We also did the Chichester Psalms by Leonard Bernstein. (That was in Hebrew.)