The Reed 2 book is probably ~75-80% tenor sax, with the rest split between oboe and flute.
The book has only 11 bars of bari sax (all in Act 2), and a whopping 5 bars of English horn (in Act 1). This is great if you’re getting doubler fees, but if you aren’t, or don’t play the double reeds and/or don’t want to lug a bari for virtually no point, the show can easily be done with 3 or fewer instruments. Only 2 of the bari notes go below the tenor’s range and could be played up an octave without an issue. The 9 notes on English horn can easily be played on flute, oboe or whatever Swiss Army knife instrument you have at hand (have to check, but it might even be possible to hand that off to the Reed 1 player to cover on alto).
I played the reed 2 book and transcribed the flute, oboe and english horn parts to clarinet and it worked really well and I didn’t want to lug a bari for 11 bars, so I used my alto instead.
Updated per information received from Ryan Redden
Updated per information received from David Heine
The Reed 2 book is probably ~75-80% tenor sax, with the rest split between oboe and flute.
The book has only 11 bars of bari sax (all in Act 2), and a whopping 5 bars of English horn (in Act 1). This is great if you’re getting doubler fees, but if you aren’t, or don’t play the double reeds and/or don’t want to lug a bari for virtually no point, the show can easily be done with 3 or fewer instruments. Only 2 of the bari notes go below the tenor’s range and could be played up an octave without an issue. The 9 notes on English horn can easily be played on flute, oboe or whatever Swiss Army knife instrument you have at hand (have to check, but it might even be possible to hand that off to the Reed 1 player to cover on alto).
I played the reed 2 book and transcribed the flute, oboe and english horn parts to clarinet and it worked really well and I didn’t want to lug a bari for 11 bars, so I used my alto instead.