Updated based on a comment from Jeff Waters. Publisher name changed to The Musical Group to reflect an apparent branding change. From Jeff’s original comment:
I just finished playing Woodwind 1 book for a 10-piece orchestration for 5 performances of “Cats.” It’s not quite as described as above–it calls for flute, tenor sax, soprano sax and clarinet. Very heavy on flute and tenor sax, requiring extreme ranges on both (D4 to C7 on flute, and Bb3 to B6 (altissimo) on tenor) and exposed playing on each. Soprano sax is only called for on one number in Act I–so you can put away the soprano at intermission and get ahead on pack-up time 😉 Woodwind 2 is the only other woodwind, and plays most of the other soprano sax lines and the beefier clarinet lines in the musical. This musical has no resting points except intermission. Continuous musical numbers back to back–so you’d better be sure you have gone to the bathroom, and don’t plan on adjusting reeds or much swabbing out of instruments, etc. between numbers or in rests. 🙂 It is reasonable on total time, though–our downbeat was 7:30 and I was packed up and leaving the parking lot at 9:30. One challenge I faced was having to go directly from extended tenor playing directly to delicate exposed flute solo on the following number at one point. I eventually “re-orchestrated” the end of the tenor number and played it on flute (it was a big, full ending and I could easily sneak a warm-up on flute for those last few measures before having to immediately play the exposed solo following.) My summary: this orchestration of “Cats” will be a challenge for the casual doubler who is a sax player that can “do some flute,” or for the flute player who can “do some sax.” (The soprano sax and clarinet demands are relatively tame and infrequent in this book. Oh, and there is one number that includes a section marked “Clarinet” and has some very high licks–but it is really for flute and wasn’t marked correctly.
Added based on a comment by David Benedict.
Updated based on a comment from Jeff Waters. Publisher name changed to The Musical Group to reflect an apparent branding change. From Jeff’s original comment:
I just finished playing Woodwind 1 book for a 10-piece orchestration for 5 performances of “Cats.” It’s not quite as described as above–it calls for flute, tenor sax, soprano sax and clarinet. Very heavy on flute and tenor sax, requiring extreme ranges on both (D4 to C7 on flute, and Bb3 to B6 (altissimo) on tenor) and exposed playing on each. Soprano sax is only called for on one number in Act I–so you can put away the soprano at intermission and get ahead on pack-up time 😉 Woodwind 2 is the only other woodwind, and plays most of the other soprano sax lines and the beefier clarinet lines in the musical. This musical has no resting points except intermission. Continuous musical numbers back to back–so you’d better be sure you have gone to the bathroom, and don’t plan on adjusting reeds or much swabbing out of instruments, etc. between numbers or in rests. 🙂 It is reasonable on total time, though–our downbeat was 7:30 and I was packed up and leaving the parking lot at 9:30. One challenge I faced was having to go directly from extended tenor playing directly to delicate exposed flute solo on the following number at one point. I eventually “re-orchestrated” the end of the tenor number and played it on flute (it was a big, full ending and I could easily sneak a warm-up on flute for those last few measures before having to immediately play the exposed solo following.) My summary: this orchestration of “Cats” will be a challenge for the casual doubler who is a sax player that can “do some flute,” or for the flute player who can “do some sax.” (The soprano sax and clarinet demands are relatively tame and infrequent in this book. Oh, and there is one number that includes a section marked “Clarinet” and has some very high licks–but it is really for flute and wasn’t marked correctly.