Get a jump on your holiday repertoire with these new arrangements.

Even though it is still technically summer, it’s not too early to start preparing for the Christmas season.

The Nutcracker

If you have an opportunity to play with flute (or perhaps violin or clarinet), you’ll enjoy Mary Jane Rupert’s suite from The Nutcracker arranged for flute and pedal harp. There are seven delightful arrangements for intermediate to advanced players from this much-loved ballet suite—all but the overture. This is not a new publication, but it has recently been made available for downloading by the publisher at www.NoteworthySheetMusic.com.  You can now purchase individual selections instead of the whole book.

[protection_text]

Dr. Rupert uses enharmonics to play repeated notes cleanly and adds some p.d.l.t. sections for variety in “March.” “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” is a charming arrangement with the harp harmonizing with the flute in sixths. The harp is featured in measures 32-36 and brings to mind the original orchestration. “Trepak (Russian Dance),” “Arab Dance” and “Chinese Dance” are all pretty readily playable. “Dance of the Reed Flutes” is more challenging and the harp harmonizes with the flute in thirds. The signature piece of the suite is, of course, “Waltz of the Flowers” and includes the cadenza. It is the longest piece at 18 pages! All of the selections have frequent pedal changes and they are clearly marked below the staff. The typesetting is easy to read and the page turns are manageable for the most part.

These pieces could be played as a suite, in groupings, or as individual pieces, and Dr. Rupert also suggests using them as encores or recital pieces. While they would be suitable for many settings during the winter holidays, they can also be played throughout the year for more informal musical occasions, and they are certainly worthy of the concert stage.

Christmas Time is HereThe animated television special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, has aired every holiday season since its debut in 1965. Vince Guaraldi’s wonderful jazz tune from the special, “Christmas Time Is Here,” has become a holiday favorite for several generations. It is extremely chromatic and pedal harpists have to do some fancy footwork to achieve all the gorgeous harmonies in the piece. If you’ve avoided it for that reason, fear not. Sylvia Woods has arranged it for not only pedal harps, but also for lever harps tuned to C or E-flat!

This is a very playable arrangement. The pedal harp or C-tuned lever harp version is in E-major. The adaptation for lever harp tuned to E-flat is in G-major. Pedal harpists may want to embellish this somewhat spare arrangement since the pedals make it easy to play the correct chords in any octave. The pedal changes are notated below the staff. Lever changes are indicated by both wording (e.g., “mid F-sharp”) and diamond-shaped notes.

Lever harp players will appreciate that Ms. Woods has retained the original harmonies but keeps lever changes to a minimum by changing octaves. There are some very quick lever (and pedal) changes, but with a little practice, they can be accomplished smoothly and rhythmically.

A few lever changes were omitted in both versions in measures 20 and 21. On the C-tuned version, the 4th octave A in m. 20 needs to be raised to sharp on the second beat. It returns to A-natural on the first beat of m. 21, but it can be omitted without sounding too empty if you can’t move it back in time. It does need to be returned to A-natural, and that can be done in either m. 21 or 22, in time for the A-natural in m. 23. In the E-flat version, it is middle C that needs to be raised in m. 20 and returned to natural in m. 21 or 22. This is a minor oversight and can probably be corrected on subsequent printings.

Also included in this publication are intermediate and beginner arrangements of the Peanuts theme, “Linus and Lucy” in D major. No lever or pedal changes are required within the piece.

FrozenSylvia Woods also has a new collection of three hits from Disney’s wildly popular animated film, Frozen. Gone are the days when the lyrics from a movie theme or Broadway show tune made sense even when taken out of context (and the public doesn’t seem to care). So, while you’ll get asked to play these melodies all year long, “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” seems especially appropriate for the winter season—or at least the title does! This is a fairly simple arrangement with some tapping on the soundboard to imitate the sound of a clock ticking. Lever harps tuned to E-flat will have to re-tune two A strings to play this as written.

The other two pieces are “Let it Go” and “Heimr Arnadair.” You can purchase each one separately as a PDF download ($6.95 each), or all of them together in one download or printed book ($15.95).

Lyrics and chord symbols are included in all of this music.  This is such a helpful addition for pop arrangements—especially if you’re not familiar with the song, so you can bring out the melody.  Let’s hope all arrangers of pop music for harp follow Ms. Wood’s lead. •

Jan Jennings is the music review editor for Harp Column and is the author of The Harpist’s Complete Wedding Guidebook and Effortless Glissing. You can email her at mail@harpbiz.com.