Requiem by John Rutter for Instruments: 3. Pie Jesu
0Every year, members of the community combine with the students of my alma mater, MSSU (Missouri Southern State University) to form the Southern Symphonic Chorus, and alongside the Southern Symphony Orchestra, we perform beautiful orchestral works from Beethoven's 9th to Orff's Carmina Burana, and everything in between or of a similar nature. Performing these great masterworks does a great service to my hometown of Joplin, MO, in that it brings class to what some folks claim would otherwise be a classless town. (I'm not so sure about that, but that's what the people have said so in the past about it.)
These tracks are remixes of other tracks I previously used to help me rehearse, but done in order to make them instrumental tracks, since I generally prefer instrumental music over music with text.
This one is a bit different because the original score I used to help me do this one is written differently. The selection, John Rutter's Requiem, is a selection near and dear to my choir director's heart because when he was a student in college, he had the pleasure of singing it with Rutter himself conducting. Since then, my director has had his students sing it every now and again. This one I've actually sung twice; once as a student (in 2011), and once as a community member (in 2017).
Due to the fact the SATB vocal parts are sometimes written in 2 staves instead of 4, I have two different methods of approaching this.
When the vocals are in 4 staves, I use my traditional system I had been using:
Alto saxophone (representing soprano part)
Tenor saxophone (representing alto part)
Glockenspiel (representing tenor part, but playing two octaves higher due to score placement)
Baritone saxophone (representing bass part)
Vibraphone (also playing bass part in treble clef)
When the vocals are in 2 staves, I do it this way:
Alto saxophone and tenor saxophone (all soprano and alto parts, written in treble clef)
Glockenspiel, baritone saxophone, and vibraphone (all tenor and bass parts, written in bass clef; the glockenspiel and vibraphone have had their parts transposed to treble clef)
In all cases, there is a piano accompaniment with a marimba playing the same thing.
The third movement features a soprano solo; I represent that here with another alto saxophone, which is listed on the score as Alto Sax 1. (Alto Sax 2 is the choir soprano line.)
This instrumental remix © me and me alone
Original music © John Rutter, Oxford University Press, and everybody else who owns the rights. This was written in 1985.
(Requiem, full score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-nEpqSmEI0)