Charpentier Te Deum "Prelude" - Organ & Trumpet arrangements

[passion_chorale]

I am just consulting the board to see if there are any recommended arrangements/transcriptions of the famous Charpentier Te Deum "Prelude" for Organ & Trumpet. It's for a wedding and at the moment I can only find extremely "simplified" versions for early grade exams and the like. Plus - are there any obvious "gotchas" that are possible when performing organ & trumpet music (only practice opportunity will on the morning before the service), like tuning problems? In particular, is this a difficult piece for a trumpeter to play? I really have no idea as usually I just pull out the trumpet stop and do it myself

Any comments gratefully received!

[David Drinkell]

It's straightforward enough for a competent trumpeter - all you need to do is write out the solo part (possibly transposing it for a B flat trumpet, although many players nowadays are happy with a part in C) and omit that part in the organ.  I use the Mayhew edition because it's handy, although I tart up the rhythms more than somewhat.

[innate]

As long as the organ is close to 440Hz at 18ºC you should be ok for tuning. Competent trumpeters should be used to playing with organ.

[Colin Pykett]

In my admittedly limited experience, both of accompanying trumpeters at weddings and of hearing them in a broader church music setting while others were playing, the problem has not been one of tuning but of dynamics.  More often than not I have to say that they seemed to have little conception of the sheer deafening loudness of their instrument, which consequently drowned out everything else.  And on the occasions when they decided to mount the pulpit it was even worse.  One of the performances in question was Messiah, and a press report the following day remarked on how good it was except for "the trumpeter's lack of aural judgement" (the phrase they used) ...

CEP

[John Furse]

Many years ago, I had to play for some kind of ceremony, in which the military governor of a (nameless) state was to make a grand, processional entrance.

For his ‘royal’ parade, I arranged Francis Jackson’s Archbishop’s Fanfare for 3 trumpeters from his military band. I was to play the organ.

Rehearsals went well, after a little initial difficulty with communication: English was not the trumpeters’ first language.

Came the day, and we might as well have been playing in four different keys and time signatures. It must have sounded like a combination of Charles Ives and Edgard Varèse. 

He gave the most ferocious glare and I swear he’d have had a sniper ‘take me out’, were we not in church. My introduction to him after the event was, to say the least, awkward.  

[S_L]

As far as the Charpentier is concerned I would have thought that, if you find a simple version and adapt it, half an hour with 'Sibelius' will get you the version that satisfies both you, the trumpet player and the situation you are in. It's not difficult for the trumpet player, and even easier if he has a D trumpet. The trumpet part will need transposing but many trumpet players will read from a Trumpet in C - and, if he/she doesn't, it is a five second job on 'Sibelius' to transpose it!

I think there is a lot to be said for making your own version, or arrangement, of music. What you produce suits you and it suits the situation you find yourself in - and 'Sibelius' (I have 'Sibelius 7') or a good music programme is hugely useful in this regard. The other benefit is that you can produce a professional looking copy and playing from a good copy, in my considerable playing experience (as a 'cellist!), produces a better performance from the player.

[John Robinson]

When we were married in 1987 my wife-to-be came in to Charpentier's Te Deum, which I had requested.  Only a small parish church in Bradford, but the organist was excellent.

We couldn't afford a trumpeter as well, thougn.