God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen (marimba quartet)

Holiday

Scored for marimba quartet, Nathan Daughtrey's arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is truly creative in the manner that he frames the traditional melody, making it appropriate not only for a sacred setting but for percussion ensemble programming any time of the year, in any performance forum.

Program Notes

Scored for marimba quartet, Nathan Daughtrey's arrangement of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen is truly creative in the manner that he frames the traditional melody, making it appropriate not only for a sacred setting but for percussion ensemble programming any time of the year, in any performance forum.

Careful directions regarding mallet selection permit performers to balance and articulate their parts throughout this 85-measure arrangement. After a rhapsodic 16-measure introduction, Daughtrey takes the listener through an imitative variation - starting with the bass marimbist. This transitions to a completely different style, with the lower two parts energizing a tight-canonic section in the upper two parts, before the arrangement ends with a sounding chorale at a very soft dynamic level.

Grade Level: 4
Copyright: 2005
Number of Players: 4
Duration: 5:00

Listen to Recordings

Sample PDF

Instrumentation

Marimba 1 (4-octave)
Marimba 2 (4-octave)
Marimba 3 (4.3-octave)
Marimba 4 (5-octave)

*Playable on one 4.3-octave Marimba and one 5-octave Marimba