The Dance of the Reed Flutes

Happy Christmas Eve to those celebrating the holiday, & a happy Friday to all.  It’s time for our Alice in Wonder Band song of the month; I probably should point out that this is the penultimate song in the series, which will wrap up in January. 

The last Alice in Wonder Band show ever was a Christmas show at the Alpine Playhouse in McCall in December 2004.  At this point, the band had five members: Art Troutner, who played oboe & mandolin; Bob George, who played clarinet, mandolin & guitar; Deadre Chase, the singer; Eberle Umbach, who at this point was playing flute, melodica, glockenspiel, & occasionally throwing in something wild like the lap steel; & yours truly,  playing guitar, baritone uke & plectrum banjo. 

I’m happy to say we went out on a high note: the show was one of our best, & I think a lot of this was thanks to some inspired arranging by Eberle; & among all her good arrangements for the show, none surpassed her distillation of Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Reed-Flutes” from The Nutcracker into a piece for a quintet.  In case you’re curious, the original score calls for an orchestra with 18 distinct instruments, as follows:

  • Flutes (4)
  • Oboes (2)
  • English Horn
  • Clarinets (2)
  • Bass Clarinet
  • Bassoons (2)
  • French Horns (4)
  • Trumpet
  • Tenor Trombone
  • Bass Trombone
  • Tuba
  • Timpani
  • Cymbals
  • Violins (two sections of course, which could be up to 32 players)
  • Violas (as many as 12)
  • Cellos (as many as 10)
  • Double Bass (as many as 8)

She managed to pare this down to the following:

  • 1 flute
  • 1 oboe
  • 1 clarinet
  • 1 voice
  • 1 electric guitar

I don’t recall now exactly how the parts were absorbed—I do know that my guitar part drew heavily from the cello music. 

I hope you enjoy the music—it was a lot of fun to play!—& that you have a joyous holiday season.  Oh, by the way: Robert Frost’s Banjo will be on the air tomorrow with the final installment of the Old-Time Holiday Train series!



Note: All images in the video are in the public domain except the intial photo of the Nutcracker.  This photo, entitled "Nußknacker aus Seiffen," is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported by Bernd Reuschenberg
The photo at the top of the post is from the original production of The Nutcracker. Imperial Mariinsky Theatre, St. Petersburg, 1892.
Labels: , ,