Product Description
The premise of this piece is: What would certain popular brass instrument
solos sound like if "Pop Goes the Weasel" had influenced the arrangers and
composers? The works under consideration
are Arthur Pryors "Blue Bells of Scotland," Jean-Baptiste Arbans "Carnival of
Venice," Andrea Catozzis "Beelzebub," Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Horn Concerto
No. 3 and Joseph Haydn's Trumpet Concerto-all popular "show-off" concert
numbers and state band contest pieces.
Could "Pop Goes the Weasel" have influenced them? Most authorities seem to agree that the
melody for "PGTW" appeared in England sometime around the middle of the 19th
Century, too late for Mozart and Haydn. Pryor, Arban and Catozzi could have heard it;
if they did, however, any influence it might have had is not readily evident in
these solos. Nonetheless, its
interesting to speculate. And, thats
what we do in "Pop Goes the Solo." Here,
"Pop Goes the Weasel" was (1) extant as early as the 1700s, and (2) these five
musicians did hear, admire and pay homage to it in their own music, and they named
the solos, respectively, "Blue Weasels of Scotland," "Carnival of Monkeys,"
"Beelzepop," "So geht das Geld" (roughly translated as "Thats the way the
money goes") and "Haydn: From the
Monkey." Since "Pop Goes the Solo" is
based on rather advanced music, it will probably take some rehearsal time to play
well.
Completed in 2017,
this arrangement runs about 6 minutes, 13 seconds. Contact the arranger, Les Smith, at
lessmith@ufl.edu. If you like this one,
dont miss Les arrangements of "Goodbye!
So Long! I'm Headin' Home!," "Out
of the Box" and "The Teddy Bears' Picnic." For more arrangements by Les, enter "Sweetwater Brass Press" (without the quotation marks) in the SheetMusicPlus search box.
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