By Billy Strayhorn | Arranged for Four Cellos by David Sanford | 7′
Title: Blood Count
Composer: Billy Strayhorn
Arranged by: David Sanford
Year Composed: 1967/2010
Instrumentation: Four Cellos
Duration: 7′
Format: Score + Parts
Catalogue Number: OM0308
Printed Edition Price: $30.00
PDF Price: $25.00
Listen to an excerpt of Blood Count:
Who’s playing? Matt Haimovitz + Uccello
David Sanford writes in the liner notes for the Oxingale recording:
Blood Count (1967) was Billy Strayhorn’s final composition for the Duke Ellington Orchestra, written from Strayhorn’s hospital bed. It is introduced here by a quote from Gordon Getty’s 1986 setting of Emily Dickinson’s similarly funereal “There came a wind like a bugle” from his cycle White Election. The inflections of alto soloist Johnny Hodges in his profound later period are re-created as closely as possible in the solo cello part and consequently the arrangement is as much an homage to Hodges as it is to Strayhorn.
This work is recorded on Oxingale Records’ album Meeting of the Spirits. Click here to go to the album page on iTunes.
