O Come, O Come, Emmanuel

One of the difficulties in writing Christmas arrangements is in not just rewriting what youve already done in an earlier piece. I had written a trumpet trio arrangement of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel only a year ago and the sound of it was still ringing in my ears while I was working on this duet arrangement. In my opinion, the trio arrangement is one of the best Christmas arrangements Ive ever written, so that makes it difficult to approach the duet with new ears. To break loose from that previous arrangement, I dug deeply into the modus operandi behind the trumpet duets in this Trumpet Christmas Duets series. The idea is to honor the mood and the harmonies of the original Christmas carol, as presented in the Christian hymnals. The trios are not confined to this M. O. By digging into the Trumpet Christmas Duets M. O., I was able to create a new piece that stands on its own merits. This O Come O Come Emmanuel trumpet duet arrangement is more peaceful than the trio arrangement. There is interplay between the melody and an arpeggiated accompaniment that gets tossed around between both parts, but this never takes away from the mood of the original hymn.