This week I did an arrangement of my Fugue in A for brass quintet, because I've always had a brass sound in mind when I first wrote it.
The music has been transposed to Bb in order to better suit brass instruments, and having 5 instruments to score for only 4 fugal voices, some doubling was added as well as additional harmonic support in some passages, along with some timbral colorations. Some lines have been transposed / extended now that they are no longer constrained by playability concerns for a single piano player.
However, I'm not 100% sure about some aspects of the arrangement:
- The key being Bb implies that the highest note in the 1st trumpet is an upper D, which occurs in a few passages, most notably in the concluding passage. Do you think this may be problematic if actually performed by a real trumpet?
- I'm not 100% sure the trombone/tuba doubling in the entrance of the 4th fugal voice in m.22 is the best way to score that passage. I wanted all instruments to enter in the exposition, in accordance with the underlying fugal structure, but I'm worried about the trombone/tuba combo being too overpowering when performed by real instruments, especially since the 3rd voice is held by the horn alone in mm.16-25.
- Does it make more sense to use the tenor clef for the entire tenor trombone part instead of switching between bass and tenor clefs? I wrote the original part in bass clef but realized that some parts go above the staff quite a bit, so inserted the tenor clef in those passages. Just wondering what the usual convention is for scoring for tenor trombone.
What do you think? Any suggestions / recommendations would be appreciated. Thanks!
Score: [PDF] [Individual parts]
Mechanical computer rendering: [mp3]
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