Review

Claude Debussy
Four Movements from Children’s Corner:

Arranged by Keith Terrett

two trumpets, horn, two trombones, and tuba

Vancouver, BC, Canada
Publisher: Cherry Classics Music
Date of Publication: 2013
URL: http://www.cherryclassics.com

Primary Genre: Brass Ensemble - 6+ brass (choir)

Arranging piano works for brass can be a daunting task. That combined with the challenge of conveying the intricacies of French Impressionism within the arrangement makes the task ever more difficult. With this offering, British trumpeter, composer, arranger and brass instructor Keith Terrett has taken up this challenge. Terrett has chosen the following movements to include in this arrangement: “Jimbo’s Lullaby,” “Serenade of the Doll,” “The Little Shepherd” and “Golliwog’s Cake-Walk.” In this case, the brass sextet includes: two trumpets in B-flat, one horn, two trombones, neither part specifically marked “bass,” and one tuba.
 
Debussy composed Children’s Corner between 1906-1908 for his then-toddler daughter, Emma-Claude. In the piano version of all the movements included in this arrangement, with the exception of “Golliwog’s Cake-Walk,” we find suggestions from Debussy about performing with gentleness and delicacy. This is the most difficult aspect of this arrangement and requires great musical maturity on the part of the performers. In many occasions, particularly in “Jimbo’s Lullaby,” the lower tessituras of the instruments are used, making it ever more challenging to attain the clarity one would hear on piano. Approximately 70% of the work uses a dynamic at or below piano. For a more comfortable and enjoyable performance, players should maintain context of these dynamics so as to avoid a weak, tentative realization of the printed indications.
 
It is a bit puzzling to me why Terrett decided to arrange this for brass sextet. At no point in the work is the texture so dense or complex that it could not be reduced to the standard brass quintet. The publisher’s website notes that this work is for “advanced players.” I tend to agree, primarily on the ability of the group to perform the work in a delicate, yet not fragile manner.

-Cory Mixdorf
University of Arkansas