The Morning Brass Ensemble of Kaneland Harter Middle School, Sugar Grove, Illinois, requested some simple arrangements of Christmas music for holiday concerts at nursing homes and shopping malls. This is a part of the collection written for them.
The three tunes in this item, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne, and I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, are immediately recognizable. The arrangements are specifically designed to be very playable by second-year players, though their use need not be restricted to just young ensembles.
From time to time, all brass groups get asked to play at a community gathering, shopping mall, open house, or something similar, and this could be a handy source of some material to play.
MP3 sound sample: All three carols once through, no repeats, except God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is complete in the sample-- we just couldn't resist (synthesizer/midi).
CHRISTMAS QUINTS NO. 2, three Christmas carols-- God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne, I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day-- arranged by Tom Kirkland for brass quintet consisting of two trumpets, french horn, trombone, and tuba, comes in a pdf file of 456K, with two one-page scores, one two-page score, nine one-page parts (most contain two parts on the same page), and a license page, fourteen pages in all. Performance time should be about two to three minutes each.