To a Friend

This instrumental arrangement is an adaptation of Greg Bartholomew’s setting for men’s chorus of the poem To a Friend by James Fenimore Cooper, Jr. (1892-1918), the great-grandson of the famous novelist.  A graduate of Yale, Cooper died of pneumonia at Camp Dix, New Jersey, the first member of his class to die in service during World War I.  To a Friend was published posthumously in 1918 in a collection titled Afterglow, some of which had previously appeared in the Yale Literary Magazine.  Captain Cooper is described therein as having “a character which never departed from the determination to do what was right and to be kind and just to all.”

Lays well for any combination of trombones or euphoniums.