Thursday, April 22, 2010

Invention No.1 in C major, from 15 Two Part Inventions - JS Bach

I was reading about Lennie Tristano the other day. His students/bandmembers Warne March and Lee Konitz sometimes opened the gigs by playing Bach's two-part inventions arranged for two saxes.
I tried to do a brass arrangement; unfortunately, it's impossible to do for two trumpets, as the pieces span a range over an octave greater than trumpet's range. However, the first one works nicely for trumpet and baritone/euphonium (I choose from the instruments I have and can play). Only the last D of bar 6 is out of range; I transposed the whole phrase (last two beats of bar 6, b-c-d-D) as I wanted to preserve that octave leap.
I guess it can also work for trumpet/trombone or various saxophone combinations.
Here it is: both voices together or separate voices.
Note they are written in C, so if played by a Bb trumpet, they would sound in concert Bb.