Three Kings Traverse Lands of Eastern Lore for Vocal Solo and Flexible Instrumental Sextet

This famous song is from the cycle Weihnachtslieder (“Christmas Songs”) by the deeply spiritual German composer Peter Cornelius. Composed in 1856 and revised in 1859 and 1870, the cycle is one of the composer’s most popular works. The perspicuity and clarity of its music and verse (Cornelius wrote both) reflect the composer’s engaging and candid temperament. The poetic message of the angular vocal line is cleverly bolstered by the subliminal message of the smoothly flowing accompanying chorale, How Brightly Shines the Morning Star by Philipp Nicolai (1556–1608).

Please review our electronic delivery policy before purchasing the digital download version of this title.

The accompaniment in this arrangement is scored for flexible instrumentation sextet, and is playable by a wide variety of standard ensembles or any other combination of players. Possible options include woodwind or brass quintet plus melody, string sextet, clarinet choir, saxophone sextet, or double reed ensemble. The parts are available in the following transpositions: