It’s actually quite a lovely arrangement, believe it or not! Grainger was a genius when it came to arranging for families of instruments, particularly woodwinds. Someone here can probably post a link to a Grainger website…his “Lincolnshire Posy” (six movements of Englsh folksongs which he collected at the turn of the century) is quite possibly the most brilliant work written/arranged for wind band that there is.
And you’ve got to check out the Grainger wind band version of “Irish Tune from County Derry” (i.e.Danny Boy). Beautiful. Check out the Eastman Wind Ensemble’s CD of Grainger tunes if you are interested (on the Eastman web site).
“Lincolnshire Posy” is indeed the best. Easily my favorite written-for-band piece – fun to play, challenging, rewarding, and it sounds awesome.
I also love how when Grainger did an arrangement, he made it work on the instruments he was writing for, rather than trying to copy how some other arrangement sounded. So, for instance, the orchestral version of “Irish Tune from County Derry” is wildly different than the band arrangement, even they share the exact same melody and harmonic ideas. The piano version is different yet again. And all three are great.