Joaquin Malats Serenata Española from his Impressions of Spain arr. mandolin, 2 classical guitars, cello playing pizzicato & upright bass. Individual instrument parts are appended to the full sheet music score in the pdf download. Use the signing up free credit facility to download the score and parts. A sunny piece that features many characteristics typical of Spanish music. There is no reason why the parts cannot be doubled to make this an exciting ensemble piece. All instruments playing in this arrangement create the sound by the plucking the strings. In this arrangement mandolin players are required to tremolo rather than trill on the long notes. Remember that the classical guitar and double bass are transposing instruments sounding an octave lower than written in the music score. The workability of this arrangement does need to be evaluated and PlentyMusic would value feedback from musicians trying out this arrangement. It is possible that there are better octave options in the parts that could be explored. Where there are challenges with stretches in the guitar & cello parts with more than one note being played the instrumentalist needs to chose or be advised one the most appropriate option. animando used in the score implies an increase in tempo and has been placed above the stave as a score marking The music in this arrangement has been transposed from the key of G minor to A minor. The origins of this piece are as a piano solo although there are many arrangements to be discovered for different instrument combinations. Interestingly, much of the Spanish piano repertoire of the 19th and early 20th centuries is more familiar transcribed to being played on the guitar and this is certainly the case with the Serenata. This is a movement that dates from the late romantic era when nationalism became an identified as an important trend in composition. The music of composers from countries on the fringes of Europe were appearing in concert programmes including music of Dvorak, Smetana, Grieg, Granados & Albeniz amongst others. Playing the scale in the sounding key of A in all its forms would be excellent preparation for playing this work major, harmonic & melodic minor and the phrygian mode. In this movement many of characteristic musical sounds of Spain are captured in a score that suggests many images of the country. There is also much figuration and decoration used in Spanish music and these feature in the melodic, accompaniment, harmonic & timbral detail. This movement music was composed and published in the last decade of the 19th century. There were some ambiguities in the source scores available to the music editor who has spent time removing most errors and inconsistencies. It is the phyrgian mode that is features strongly in Spanish music. The structure of the phyrgian scale is S/T-T-T-T-S/T-T-T (S/T = semitone T = tone) Modal shifts from minor to major also feature The realisation plays back at a tempo of 116 quarter note or crotchet beats to the minute although there are occasionally speeding ups (marked animando in the score) and slowing downs particularly at the end of phrases. Formally the music has a sectional structure and can be described as being in ABA ternary form. (AABB’A) Spanish music is often dramatic and on occasions invites exaggeration in performance. The extensive melodic range is a particular characteristic of this movement and instrument ranges are often challenged.

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