Mendelssohn's Oratorio Elijah is full of great choral pieces. This particular chorus has always been a favorite.
The text is taken from Psalm 121:4 "He, watching over Israel, slumbers not nor sleeps," and Psalm 138:7 "Shouldst thou, walking in grief, languish, He will quicken thee."
These two phrases are interwoven to great effect in Mendelssohn's soaring style.
This edition indicates a tempo of about 80 bpm, though some prefer to perform it a bit faster. This is a somewhat rare arrangement for this site in that it does not require a bass trombone.
For this arrangement, we have taken the piece down a half-step, and in addition to the 17-page score and four 2-page instrumental parts, we have provided a more-readable 8-page accompaniment part that also reduces page-turning.
HE WATCHING OVER ISRAEL by Felix Mendelssohn, arranged by Tom Kirkland for brass quartet consisting of two trumpets and two trombones, with piano accompaniment, comes in a pdf file of 2145K, with a seventeen-page score, four two-page parts, eight-page accompaniment, and a license page, thirty-four pages in all. Performance time should be just under four minutes.