Product Description
Chopin's Funeral March arranged for Wind Quintet (Flute, Oboe, Clarinet, Horn, Bassoon).
This is the movement in its entirety (approximately 9 minutes), which has been carefully and faithfully transcribed/arranged from the original.
If there is any piece of music that modern western society associates with a sombre funeral procession, it is this march from Chopin's second piano sonata in Bâ minor. It was used for Chopin's own funeral in Paris in 1849. In the 20th century it was used at the state funerals of Sir Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, and Leonid Brezhnev. It also appears in both serious and comic films to symbolise death or impending disaster.
Everyone knows the opening march with the slow plodding notes in the piano's left hand, but there is so much more to this wonderful piece of music! There is light and shade. There is seriousness, but it is tempered with poignancy and a sublimely beautiful and lyrical trio section in Dâ major. It is a gorgeous composition, which is both world-famous and unknown at the same time. Educate your audiences by performing the whole movement. They will see it in a new light.
The piano sonata was published in 1840, although this movement was written two years earlier. The march is one of Chopin's most enduringly popular works. Although published as 'Marche Funèbre' (funeral march) in 1838, Chopin later removed the word Funèbre and referred to it simply as "Marche" (march), both in later editions of the sonata and in his personal correspondence. It seems he did not want the march to be associated purely with funerals, which seems remarkably prescient given the associations that the music has today.
So it is definitely time to look at this work afresh and that is what the arranger has done in this version for Wind Quintet. The instrumental colours lend themselves both to the sombre opening march (bassoon, horn and clarinet) and the lyrical central trio where the flute and oboe take centre stage accompanied by flowing quavers in the clarinet and Chopin's original bass line in the bassoon, and the horn filling out the harmony.
Duration; 8.30 to 9 minutes (7 minutes without repeats)
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.