Guise, Jean François de - Brass cantata for Palm Sunday op. 7, No. 13

Guise Jean François de
Brass cantata for Palm Sunday
 op. 7, no. 13

In the portfolio of brass music, original compositions of a cantata are still quite rare. In most cases, they are more or less successful arrangements. The fact that Johann Sebastian Bach occupies a special place there is due to the fame and popularity of his cantata work.
But there are hardly any works to be found that come close to what might be considered new church music.
Even in the compositions for wind ensembles, especially those for wind choirs, a contemporary tonal language rarely occurs. Rather, the composers resort to arrangements of popular music or jazz, or assimilate themselves to this sound structure.
Jean François de Guise, who has always written music for the church, attempts here to introduce a somewhat different sound into the traditional church cantata.
The basic conception follows the claim that this piece can also be played by good wind choirs. The composer does not use extended playing techniques or microtonality. Nevertheless, new sounds are created, which are considered established in the worship service in very few churches so far.
The individual small pieces of music, which Jean François de Guise uses as preludes and interludes, can also be played separately, so they do not necessarily have to be heard only within the cantata. The variety of instrumentations makes this possible even for smaller ensembles. An eloquent example is the Intrada.
The enclosed "Piano reduction" serves only the singer, and is therefore not suitable for performing the piece with voice and piano only. This follows from the fact that important tone colors created by the instruments used cannot be represented on the piano.
If possible, each voice should also be cast in single voice only, if only for reasons of intonation and tonal balance.

2 trumpets, 2 trombones, flugelhorn, piano reduction
score & 5 parts with piano reduction / 121 pages