Review

Louis Ganne
Marche Lorraine:

Arranged by Jean-Louis Couturier


Antibes, , France
Publisher: Flex Editions
Date of Publication: 2012

Score and parts

Primary Genre: Trombone Ensembles - 4 trombones

Louis Ganne (1862-1923) was a French conductor and composer of operas, ballets and marches. This arrangement of an old French 6/8 march works fairly well for trombone quartet but requires nimble players to handle the quicker notes. It starts out in B-flat and, as expected, moves to the subdominant for the Trio and its relative minor for the break strain, labeled as “Fanfares” in the score. The first part carries most of the melody although the second part gets the lead role for a bit of the Trio. Although the first and second parts use tenor clef, they sit in a comfortable range, never going above a-flat1.   The third and fourth parts play a supporting role with not much rhythmic challenge. The bass trombone plays standard downbeats with lots of pedal BB-flats but does have a couple of nasty measures which most players will successfully fake. The parts are clean but are printed on three separate pages each. The pages are clearly labeled but I suggest taping the pages together to avoid unfortunate incidents. A YouTube recording of this piece performed by the Coldstream Guards gives a good idea of the style. The D.C. al fine is a bit long-winded but I noticed that the Guards used a D.S. instead to keep the length reasonable. It is nice to see a trombone quartet arrangement that doesn’t overly tax the high range but some of the little grace note figures would be more manageable in a higher key. That trade-off aside, this is a good addition to the transcription repertoire for trombone quartet.

-Brad Edwards
University of South Carolina