I have been delighted to see that The Lone Ar-ranger, in its piano duet format, has been popular. A number of people have been interested in arrangements for various ensembles, and so I have initially decided to provide an orchestral version. Rather than keep to Rossini's fuller orchestration, I have written this with a 'light' orchestra in mind, and have dedicated it to the Radio Light Orchestra in Plymouth who, I hope, will... (more)

I have been delighted to see that The Lone Ar-ranger, in its piano duet format, has been popular. A number of people have been interested in arrangements for various ensembles, and so I have initially decided to provide an orchestral version. Rather than keep to Rossini's fuller orchestration, I have written this with a 'light' orchestra in mind, and have dedicated it to the Radio Light Orchestra in Plymouth who, I hope, will be able to include it in one of their afternoon concerts soon. As before, I have kept to the harmonic frame-work of the original piece, which is essentially tonic / dominant in the home key, and relative minor. The challenge was always to weave together a number of different tunes each conforming at any one time to this pattern. Introducing a wider range of keys and modulations was never an option in the task I set myself to begin with, in an essentially short work which hopefully gives the listener enough to think about!


The Brass Band version is now published by Thornes Music (Shrewsbury, UK), where it is now available to listen to, view or purchase, if required.

I am delighted that the Radio Light Orchestra has now been able to include The Lone Ar-ranger! on its first CD, Light Fantastic!, released in Autumn 2005, and the attached MP3 file of this track certainly does them proud, I think!
Following a number of requests worldwide, I have now uploaded a special non-playing score, which lists, and identifies all the tune fragments used in The Lone Ar-ranger!

Click here for further information.

All Reviews

There are 14 reviews for this score

Tally-Ho! 40-piece MASTER-piece
If it had words, you wouldn't be able to stop singing. And the parts that DO have words, you can't remember where they are in the vast multitude of the musical collage that Philip R. Buttall has somehow meshed together seamlessly. Listening to it over and over again, I can recognise The William Tell Overture, Scotland The Brave, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor?, Brahms' Hungarian Dance No.5, The Wedding March, Peter And The Wolf and the Hebrides Overture.....and that's less than half of them! How exactly Buttall managed to transpose all this, fit it together, and compact it into 3 mins is beyond my level of understanding, and beyond a LOT of composers' skills of this time. Normally, I would refuse to pay for a copy of sheet music, since I believe that you can't put a price to good music (a clichè, i know, but true nonetheless ;), however this piece should be in ANY orchestra's repertoire, whether free or $50 a page. Buttall is a master composer, every piece a symphony in it's own right. He's an inspiration to all aspiring composers.

Jye Burton

Concert Band version?
I love listening to this, and have only recently discovered the piano duet version, which is equally brilliant. I would so love to see a version written for concert band, and think this would prove just as popular.

Alison McCree

Hilarious as always
For a relatively literate musician this is an absolutely hilarious piece (and for most non-musicians too...hopefully they'll recognize some of the melodies in this piece!) I like all the versions of it, especially the piano duet arrangement. I have one suggestion for this orchestral version though--it might be easier for the trumpeter(s) to use a trumpet in a different key--a trumpet in D or perhaps C...rather than the Bb trumpet which gives them a pesky F# key signature. This would probably be up to the performer, since it wouldn't make much if any difference in sound. I notice you have the clarinets in A which is definitely a better choice than a Bb clarinet. Overall great work!

Jerome Osborne

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