Russian Christmas Music

[RickF]

Our band is doing "Russian Christmas Music" by Alfred Reed. I was listening to the mp3 file of the USCG Band performing this piece live in 2005 with the alumni band on Dave Werden's blog (great sound by the way).

Russian Christmas Music - USCG Band
Scroll down to Thursday Dec. 21, 2006 to view link

We rehearsed this for the first time last night... although we played this great piece a few years ago. The first solo at measure 13 is being played by alto sax on the USCG recording, but it's written as an oboe solo. Just curious as to why the alto sax? I hear oboe and English horn later on in the piece so the voice was there. Maybe this is a bit different arrangement?

Also... I seem to hear double bass in spots later in the piece. Did (does) the USCG band use string bass in there instrumentation?

Thanx.

[davewerden]

I don't recall changing anything to use alto sax, so I assume it was in the score that way. Maybe Reed changed it later - we had a very early publication of it.

String bass was called for and the Band always has a string bass player, who is used in most pieces.

This piece doesn't have the greatest euphonium part (it's not bad - just not exciting), but it was still one of my favorite pieces to play because of it's power. Also, it's a pretty long piece but the audience never seemed to mind!

[RickF]

Thanks Dave,

There are two dates on the copyright of my copy.

1969 by Sam Fox Publ, followed by...
1947 (Unpubl.) by Sam Fox Publ.So maybe Alfred Reed did make a change as it looks like we have a more recent copy.

Also, it's a pretty long piece but the audience never seemed to mind!

From the response of the audience in the recording, they really liked it. BTW, I like the sound of the string bass there.

Thanks again.