Description

Medley 1 – Away in a Manger / Silent Night / O Come, All Ye Faithful

Medley 2 – We Three Kings / The First Nowell / The Holly and the Ivy

Medley 3 – Once in Royal David’s City / Joy to the World / Ding Dong Merrily on High

Medley 4 – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing / Good King Wenceslas

Who doesn’t love Christmas carols? Whatever your creed, these beautiful melodies and their messages of joyous hope are undeniably moving, and remain both a central part of the Christian celebration of Christmas and of our experience of it. Carols are also an everlasting reminder of the extent to which Christianity has inspired (and continues to inspire) artists, musicians and writers: a vast contribution to human culture that no other organised religion or philosophy can claim to emulate.  

Away in a Manger begins the first medley and was the first I arranged: simply because I love the beauty of its melody and the tenderness of its lyric. Perhaps it’s my favourite carol and maybe I’m not alone in that! But Christmas carols aren’t always so restrained: the beauty of the genre is that there is room for more outgoing – even rumbustious – examples such as Joy to the World and even We Three Kings (once it changes into the major).  

I hope you enjoy playing these arrangements.  In penning them, I have tried to ensure that all five instruments have their ‘moments in the sun’: if not always in each carol then certainly within each medley.  

Felix Rigg

Parts included:

  • Score
  • Trumpet 1 in B-flat
  • Trumpet 2 in B-flat
  • Horn in F
  • Trombone
  • Tuba