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Composition Spotlight: “We Three Kings”

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COMPOSITION SPOTLIGHT ~ by Jack Senzig
 
(Each week we look at one or two of the best choral works posted in the Composition Showcase here on ChoralNet.  This is where we store a treasure trove of works that your choirs will love to sing and your audiences will love to hear.)
 
We Three Kings by Rick Bartlett for TTBB and piano (Click here for PDF and here for AUDIO)
 
Level: Advanced High School or Higher
Uses: Holiday Concert
Program Themes: Footsteps in the Snow, Winter in Sound
This Piece Would Program Well With: A Country Boy in Winter by Greg Bartholomew available through the Composition Showcase
 
I have rarely had the privilege to find a piece as perfect for a particular image as this week’s Silver Platter Award recipient.   Rick Bartlett has created the perfect living acoustic Christmas Card. 
 
The frosty piano part projects every beautiful snow covered lane, red barn, horse drawn sleigh and white-covered green pine tree I have ever seen onto my minds eye.  Maybe it’s just because I live in Wisconsin, or maybe it’s because Rick Bartlett is a choral illusionist, take your pick, but I love this setting of We Three Kings!  Your audience will too.
 
We Three Kings is available from the composer by emailing him at: crickb88(a)cox.net or through ChoralNet https://choralnet.org/view/user/6077

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Ray,
     
    Thanks for you for your observations!  When I originally scored this, it was for TTB, but as I progressed through the arrangement, I found it difficult to prevent myself from going into 4 voices.  If I transpose this down a step, things change and it begins to sound “muddy” in places.  I believe, in the long run, that this work would be more accessible if the “muddy” parts were re-written, saving voice strain on the tenors.  With that in mind, I will also be looking to transpose this into a meaningful SATB score.  Thank you for the feedback.  (I’m in hopes that there are some adventurous altos that might want to cross over into tenor-land.)
     
    Best,
    Rick

  2. This arrangement brings up an interesting issue for me – one that I’ve had to address recently in some compositions I’ve written for a local choir.  I see that the tenors have several high As throughout the piece.  Unless I know the group specifically (as is the case with the group I mentioned), I’m not sure that I would be comfortable writing As for high school tenors.  I perform with 2 adult groups and can speak to the ‘quality’ of the tenor voices when they are asked to sing Gs or above.  In the pieces I did, I had to re-score the measures to allow the altos to do the As.  Fortunately, the pieces were for SATB, so altos were available and the timbre of the piece wasn’t materially affected by the re-scoring.
     
    I found the following website:  http://music.stackexchange.com/questions/5977/accepted-ranges-for-satb-choral-works which discusses this issue.
     
    On the other hand, I really liked the arrangement. 
     
    Just my two cents.

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