Hymn Descants for Trumpet: Evangelical Lutheran Worship

Descants on over 200 hymn tunes contained in Evangelical Lutheran Worship, many of them useable also with other hymnals, make up this rich resource. Whether the hymn is jubilant or meditative, these descants will illuminate and enrich the hymn-singing experience. With trumpets and the sound of the horn, make a joyful noise before God!

Reproducible and spiral-bound for ease of use.

In stock

$45.00

Samples
Hymn Descants Sampler

ISBN 9781506413778
Brand Evangelical Lutheran Worship
Format Sheet Music; Spiral
Dimensions 8.5 x 11
Pages 280
Publisher Augsburg Fortress
Season/Occasion General
Difficulty Medium-Difficult
Publication Date Nov 1, 2016

Composer Commentary

As a professional classical trumpet player and a frequent performer in church, I have often been asked to improvise hymn descants "on the spot." Although my improvised descants generally seemed adequate, I knew I could create better descants if I carefully composed them. Sometimes I encountered published descants that seemed like they would work well, but which contained "wrong notes" that didn't fit with the particular version/harmonization of the hymn that we were using. The harmonizations of hymn tunes can vary to a surprising extent, depending on the church denomination or which hymnal is being used.

As a retirement project, I began to assemble and organize the various descants that I had written during my 42 years of teaching in higher education, and I also composed additional descants for many other frequently-performed hymns. Although many of these descants can work perfectly well with many main-line churches' hymnals, as a Lutheran, it was only natural that I wrote these descants for the specific harmonizations found in Evangelical Lutheran Worship. Although conceived for well-developed trumpeters, these descants can be adapted for less-developed players or for other instruments.