The Twelve Days of Christmas!

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When I was still in high school, my siblings and I decided to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" for our parents' wedding anniversary!  I was learning a lot of music in school, and I had become fairly confident with writing 4-part harmony, so once the holidays came round, I frantically ruled my own manuscript paper, and made the arrangement of the popular carol.  Let's face it: there are only nine distinct bars of music that are repeated over and over again, so it was not very difficult to work out, and not difficult for my siblings and me to learn.  It was a screaming success, back then, and it was performed again and again at holiday family gatherings, but I had all but forgotten it, until my Uncle recently played me a cassette recording of it!  Back then, it had been taped on a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and had been re-recorded into the cassette player about fifteen years ago.

I decided to transcribe it into notation in my computer, and here it is!

Notes:

(1) The fabulous glissando in the 11^th day was intended to be played by a trombone!  Generally speaking, the group on the left channel was intended to be flute, clarinet, trombone, and bassoon, to fill in the tenor, but for some reason the trombone sound was not smooth enough, so I ended up using a bass clarinet.  Unfortunately, the bass clarinet can't really do a glissando, so it sounds a bit silly.

(2) Initially, as I said, the piece was intended to be sung, and when I put it into the computer last week, I imagined it being sung by a choir, with the verses being alternated between three quartets, with everyone joining in for the opening lines, and "And a partridge in a pear tree!"  But it was too difficult to come up with three contrasting instrumental quartets, so I'm making do with just two.  I must say that the double-reeds on the left channel really sound wonderful.

(3) Notice the use of staccato.  I think I've overdone it, but it does add something to the performance, and makes it a little more familiar when compared with the sung lyrics.

Do enjoy it, and feel free to use this arrangement anytime.  I'll post the sheet music somewhere convenient, if anyone is interested.

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