The word “arranging,” as it applies to music, is abused far too often.
It drives me crazy the way certain brands of press about new music describe a new piece, often for chorus, as “a new arrangement” of [fill in the title of the text]; say, Psalm 150.
This is symptomatic of so many things that it could produce a book-length manuscript. Not the least of these is the notion that no one can possibly be writing new, classically-based music today because, well, aren't those composers all dead now?
Never mind that this is a truly classic (as it were) case of Orwell's double-think: no one would ever question that a new movie has a brand new (= newly composed) symphonic score by John Williams, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, or any number of other living composers—but, somehow, if it's something close to home or not out of Hollywood or not on a program by your city's symphony orchestra, etc., etc., it can't possibly be new or original.
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This post’s offering is, indeed, an arrangement—the genuine article; and one of which I’m proud.
I mentioned last time that one of the works that influenced my Rhapsody on Anglo-American Ballad Tunes was another rhapsody, for oboe and strings, by Wayne Barlow entitled The Winter's Passed. It, too, falls into the ambiguous category about which I wrote last time: it quotes two different Anglo-American folk songs at length, but the setting and harmonic language is wholly original.
One of the two folk songs is easily identifiable as “Wayfaring Stranger”—but that one is the “B” theme. The other, the “A” theme, is more pervasive, sounding both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Back when I worked for Theodore Presser Company in the days when they ran a retail store, I ran across Folk Songs of the Americas (ed. A.L. Lloyd et al) published by Novello (London, UK; out of print; but I’ve seen copies for sale on eBay) some time in 1991. It contained many songs I’d never heard of, but one title I recognized was “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.” I turned to it expecting to see some variation of the familiar melody associated with John Jacob Niles, but: lo and behold, here was the tune that Barlow used in The Winter's Passed!
According to Wikipedia:
“These words are set to two distinct melodies: one of which is traditional, and the other was written by the Kentucky folk singer and composer John Jacob Niles. (Emphasis mine.) Niles recalled that his father thought the traditional melody was ‘downright terrible,’ so he wrote ‘a new tune, ending it in a nice modal manner.’”
This confirms something I’d suspected for a long time. I have no idea why Niles’ father disliked the traditional tune so, unless he was thinking of a different one altogether...
Needless to say, the arranger-half of me got right to work on it, since, to my knowledge, it had never been set chorally (and, as far as I can tell, still hasn’t). I completed a setting for soprano solo, mixed chorus and celtic harp (or keyboard) that summer.
It took until 2014 for it to be premiered, after some substantial revision and refinement. Here it is, sung by the Vocal Ensemble of Community College of Philadelphia under my direction, accompanied by H.L. Smith, II, with soprano soloist Shanice Manley.
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