Product Description
Davison was a mid-20th-century American composer, educated at Harvard and the Eastman School, who spent his career teaching at Haverford College. Although not widely known, his music is tonal and quite appealing--in a similar vein to Copland, Hindemith, David Diamond, and the like--displaying Davison's unmistakable flair, wit, and panache. The Suite woodwind-quintet arrangement is intended for advanced-intermediate players.
Kaplan writes "I have fond memories of studying composition with John Davison at Haverford College, where music majors received a copy of his book, Piano Music I. It has been a beloved companion through the years, always in a prominent place on the piano."
The Suite is a surprising and satisfying piece, reflecting the baroque origins of the form, and incarnated in a tonal but clearly twentieth-century style, displaying considerable wit. It works well in a woodwind-quintet arrangement (even though here and there some notes are omitted--after all, a pianist has more than five fingers!--or raised or lowered by an octave). The woodwind quintet is ideal for contrapuntal music, since the distinctive color of each instrument helps to bring out the contrapuntal lines. Note that the usual wind-quintet oboe part is here replaced by an English Horn, which is a better match to the registers chosen by the composer. The flute part includes an optional-piccolo passage at the end of the first movement. As is typical for wind arrangements of piano music, the horn part lies fairly low, extending from (concert) F2 to B4.
This is part of Kaplan's project to broaden the repertoire of music available to woodwind-quintet players by arranging both great classics and little-known gems. Many more of his arrangements have been posted to YouTube and are available for purchase on SheetMusicDirect and SheetMusicPlus.
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.