This absolutely fabulous song comes from the 1965 slapstick comedy film, The Great Race. I first heard it on James Galway's album, In the Pink, which features Galway playing 13 of Henry Mancini's songs.

This piece just screams fun in the middle of a gazillion notes just flying by. Filled with arpeggios, this is a workout for the fingers and requires quite a bit of precision for the song to sound really good. As with most of my arrangements, I have tried to give every part something interesting to play, with the exception of the contrabass flute and optional upright bass, which could also be played by any C instrument in the bass clef range. These lower parts are important in helping maintain good downbeats.

Scored for 5 C flutes, alto, bass, contrabass, and optional upright bass. There are 2-part divisis in flutes 1 - 4. This piece is for the more advanced flute choir and would be a great opener or encore for your recitals.

Duration: 2.75 minutes

A Song of Winter?Snowmen & Icicles
PhyllisAvidan Louke
Length: 6:45
Difficulty: 3 to 3+

Evocative of a cold and windy dayin winter, A Song of Winter explores the contrasts between thesmoothness and roundness of a snowman and the hardness and jaggedness oficicles.

Beginning with a winter stormwith wind and swirling snow, the wind calms, and the building of a snowmanbegins with the rolling of a snowball. The rolling forms the biggest ball of the snowman (represented by thebass and alto flutes), which is briefly interrupted by a playful snowballfight. The flutes continue the melodyfor the rolling of the second ball of the snowman, followed by the piccolorepresenting the rolling of the smallest ball (the head of the snowman). The melody is smooth and round in a lilting I time.

With the snowman complete, thewind and swirling snow return to lead into the Icicles section. The jaggedness of the icicles is representedby the jaggedness of syncopation in a marcato style with the melody skippinglarger intervals than the Snowmen melody. Visually, the score shows the jagged shape ofthe icicles. Double-tongued ascendingand descending lines, add to hard and brittle feeling of the icicles, as wellas to the shape of the melody. Thepiccolo adds the glistening, shimmering effect of sunlight reflecting off the icicles. Eventually, fragments of the Snowmenmelody are interspersed with the Icicles, followed by a final windstorm, which calms at the end of the piece.

Christmas
Winter
Winter Holidays
Stormy
Concert
Original Composition