Composition - - American Recorder Society
Five Noels à 2
By Anthony St. Pierre October 2020
 
S A (4 pieces), T B (1 piece)
 
 
This selection of five well known French Christmas carols (Noëls - perhaps a contraction of "nouvelles" referring to the news of a messiah's birth) offers four carols for SA and one for TB. All are highly stylized; you'll recognize the tunes, but through a guise. Players who have command of a two octave range and are comfortable with trill fingerings in the common recorders keys will find this set approachable. Be sure to read the performance notes included with the pdf, and do listen to the accompanying recording. Duration: 7:00

The ARS library has many Christmas selections available for recorders in a variety of combinations.
-- Anthony St. Pierre
 
English Titles:
Angels We Have Heard on High
Between the Ox and Ass
He is Born, the Child Divine
Bring a Torch, Jeanette
Christmas Comes Anew
 
Familiar holiday carols are given some fun harmonic twists, plenty of accidentals, and good interplay between the parts. As the composer suggests, listen to the recordings and read the Performance Notes, which describe in clear detail how to tackle the various features in the music. Intermediate players and up will have plenty to enjoy if they are willing to invest a bit of time getting familiar with some note patterns they may not encounter very frequently. Three of the five carols are a single page, and the other two are two pages each. There are occasional high notes in the soprano in the 4 Soprano-Alto duos, as well as a high F in the bass in the Tenor-Bass duo. Keep in mind that Tenor-Bass can also be played Soprano-Alto, and vice versa, though the timbre and character of the sound will be quite different from the recordings.
-- Glen Shannon
 
The composer has recorded play-along parts for this piece.
Play-Along Instructions
Listen to all parts
No soprano - you play soprano
No alto - you play alto
 
 
No. of Recorder Parts:
2
Difficulty:
Moderate
Occasion:
Christmas/Advent
Libraries:
New Music for Recorder
Date Added:
11/04/2020
Style:
Social/Casual, Concert, Fast/Up-tempo, Laid-back/Slow, Tonal/Melodic, Folk/Traditional, Variations/Fantasies/Adaptations, Recorded Accompaniment