Sax Quartets

Shepherds' Farewell

Hector Berlioz, arr. Alex Guilmant, Ben Tordoff

Composed:
1850 Arranged:
1884 Grouping:
SATB or AATB Duration:
02:00

Berlioz's music was so poorly received by his Parisien audiences that he originally had "L'adieu des bergers" (Shepherds' Farewell) performed as a forgotten piece by a fictional 17th-century composer "Ducré". It was so popular that he incorporated and expanded it into the oratorio "L'Enface du Christ". Whereas most Christmas stories end with the birth of Jesus, this oratorio starts with Herod's dream and describes Mary and Jospeh fleeing Bethlehem with their new baby for safety in Egypt.

This sax quartet is a fairly literal transcription of Alex Guilmand's organ reduction (available on IMSLP), produced in time for Christmas 2020 despite the pandemic preventing any opportunity to perfom it.

If you enjoyed this piece, have comments or corrections, we'd love to hear from you.

This music is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Licence.