Arrangements, Transcriptions, Orchestrations, etc.

[EigenUser]

Any opinions?

Continued from the "What are you listening to?" thread, page 1050.

Let's rumble! Didn't you have a quote from Brahms about offending everyone? Well if there are any fans of Ravel I have not offended yet, I'm about to rectify that! Fortunately an audio lecture illustrating exactly my complaint has already been prepared, saving me the trouble. http://youtu.be/Y5kT_Z4nmq8

Now let's consider some of Ravel's best pieces. The piano Concerto for two hands, the quartet,  D&C, Gaspard.
They are largely immune from this criticism. But then let's consider many others: barque, or the quintessential Ravel piece Bolero, or the orchestrations of various piano suites. Pictures at an exhibition. These are all nice pieces, but they fit the lecturer's example.

I don't ask you to agree with me, but I think you have to admit that there is some justice in the criticism.

Mind you, I have other complaints.

I agree to an extent. The same thing happens in more popular music as well, I assume.

Coincidentally, I got halfway through the first movement in arranging the G Major piano concerto for two violins and piano (why? I don't know, seriously. I just do odd things some times  ...). And I got about a quarter of the way through the first movement in arranging the quartet for violin and piano (it has already been arranged for piano solo by Ravel's friend Lucien Garban, who worked for Ravel's publisher Durand et Fils). I'd like to finish the quartet arrangement sometime, as it was coming out nicely.

[Ken B]

Any opinions?

Continued from the "What are you listening to?" thread, page 1050.

I agree to an extent. The same thing happens in more popular music as well, I assume.

Coincidentally, I got halfway through the first movement in arranging the G Major piano concerto for two violins and piano (why? I don't know, seriously. I just do odd things some times  ...). And I got about a quarter of the way through the first movement in arranging the quartet for violin and piano (it has already been arranged for piano solo by Ravel's friend Lucien Garban, who worked for Ravel's publisher Durand et Fils). I'd like to finish the quartet arrangement sometime, as it was coming out nicely.

Well, I wish I could do that! But I don't even read music. Anyway it has to be a great way to get into a piece. It is obvious from your posts that you like to engage very deeply with particular pieces that interest you.

[EigenUser]

Well, I wish I could do that! But I don't even read music. Anyway it has to be a great way to get into a piece. It is obvious from your posts that you like to engage very deeply with particular pieces that interest you.

I'm always happy to see that there are non-music-readers who love classical music. I usually have such a difficult time figuring out a piece if I cannot see the score, which I really wish wasn't the case. I mean, I love reading scores, but I wish I had a greater appreciation for the sound itself.

I'd really like to arrange Bartok's 3rd string quartet for orchestra, too. Every time that I hear it I hear various orchestral instruments: an english horn/oboe solo at the very opening, muted trumpets when strings play sul ponticello, snare drums for col legno passages, etc.

[Mirror Image]

Schoenberg's arrangement of Brahms' Piano Quartet. 'Nuff said.

[Ken B]

I'm always happy to see that there are non-music-readers who love classical music. I usually have such a difficult time figuring out a piece if I cannot see the score, which I really wish wasn't the case. I mean, I love reading scores, but I wish I had a greater appreciation for the sound itself.

I'd really like to arrange Bartok's 3rd string quartet for orchestra, too. Every time that I hear it I hear various orchestral instruments: an english horn/oboe solo at the very opening, muted trumpets when strings play sul ponticello, snare drums for col legno passages, etc.

Boasting a bit I have a good ear. I attended a rehearsal of tchai 5 (first wife violin) and heard an oddity in a horn bit, one phrase. I asked wife and violist friend why the first horn was varying. They denied utterly. It was a semi pro orch and the first chairs were all professionals. So i dragged out some recordings, found the section. They swore that is what he was playing. So we noted the spot. But after next rehearsal they came back and agreed I was right.  He was doing exactly what I said.

[Cato]

One of the most interesting examples is Alexander Nemtin's orchestration of late piano works by Alexander Scriabin for a ballet called Nuances.

http://www.youtube.com/v/HDsQ9XTM26U

[amw]

I'd really like to arrange Bartok's 3rd string quartet for orchestra, too.

That would be fun. You should do it.

Some arrangements I considered making include Brahms's Piano Sonata Op. 5 for the forces of Schoenberg's 1st chamber symphony; Shostakovich's Piano Trio Op. 67 for same; Beethoven's Hammerklavier adapted into a piano concerto (this might involve adding a significant amount of material esp in the 1st movement, so I chickened out, but might go back to it later); the slow movement of Brahms's Sextet Op. 18 for orchestra; Alkan's Concerto for Solo Piano for, er, piano and orchestra—though to preserve the impossibility of the original I was also considering adapting it for violin or cello and orchestra—and completing Schubert's Reliquie Sonata D.840 as a string quartet. Yes, I have a slightly unhealthy obsession with transcription.

Lately I've become increasingly fascinated with transcriptions of orchestral music for chamber ensembles—eg the small ensemble version of Das Lied von der Erde, the septet Metamorphoses, Shostakovich's 15th arranged for piano, violin, cello, clarinet and percussion. So maybe something like that will be my next never-to-be-completed project. >.>

[EigenUser]

That would be fun. You should do it.

I'd love to, but it's just so much tedious copying! And that piece is so musically dense and concentrated.

Shostakovich's Piano Trio Op. 67

I did this one (just the 4th movement) for string orchestra, harp, and celesta a few years ago. I'd like to expand it for full orchestra sometime.

A couple of weeks ago I got the idea to arrange Ligeti's song cycle "Sippal, Dobbal, Nadihegeduvel" for viola, piano, and percussion.

Is there already a small-ensemble version of Mahler's "Das Lied"? Or are you thinking about it?

[Ken B]

I'd love to, but it's just so much tedious copying! And that piece is so musically dense and concentrated.



I did this one (just the 4th movement) for string orchestra, harp, and celesta a few years ago. I'd like to expand it for full orchestra sometime.

A couple of weeks ago I got the idea to arrange Ligeti's song cycle "Sippal, Dobbal, Nadihegeduvel" for viola, piano, and percussion.

Is there already a small-ensemble version of Mahler's "Das Lied"? Or are you thinking about it?

Schoenberg arranged DLVDE for 9 players or so plus voices. Might be more than 9, but it's small.

[amw]

Is there already a small-ensemble version of Mahler's "Das Lied"? Or are you thinking about it?

No, all of those things exist (though I only have recordings of the latter two). As Ken B says the Das Lied arrangement is by Schoenberg, who also took things the other way (scaling a Brahms piano quartet up into a very un-Brahmsian orchestra piece, his own 1st Chamber Symphony into a much less interesting Orchestra Symphony etc).

Yours looks not bad but I don't know how I'd do the 4th movement without a bass clarinet. >.> I was also thinking of substituting for the existing ending a more depressing one based on the coda to the 2nd Cello Concerto/15th Symphony (with all the tick-tock percussion), something I think Mitya might have approved of later in life judging from his comments about the ending of Boris Godunov.

Anyway, another arrangement that has fascinated me for a while is Jean Françaix's arrangement of the Chopin preludes for orchestra—partly because some of them just don't work at all. But how do you even arrange Chopin for orchestra without changing the patterns significantly to be more idiomatic? Is it even possible? I find that quite interesting to ponder, even though it's probably not the point.

[pjme]

If you happened to hear a broadcast of some of this recording, not having heard of it before, and supposing also that you were not intimately familiar with the two books of Preludes which Debussy wrote for the piano but were in fact quite familiar with all the orchestral work of Debussy – and Ravel – you might be almost beside yourself trying to identify what you were hearing. Even if you are in fact quite familiar with the Preludes you still might have difficulty. For myself, knowing very well what works I was hearing on this recording, I still was very surprised to hear a familiar-sounding passage that brought La Mer to mind – with all its power – and another that reminded me of Ravel's La Valse – among many fresh sounds.

Luc Brewaeys' respect for Debussy's work is such that in producing this version of the Preludes – first performed in Brussels at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in late 2004 and late 2005 – he "decided not to touch Debussy's notes." No doubling, even. "There's not a single octave in the score, which was not written by Debussy himself....also during the loud passages where the temptation to add notes for additional effect is great: I mainly searched for very specific, original combinations of sounds within the orchestral forces." He says that "it wasn't my intention to orchestrate the works as Debussy would have done himself. I wanted to give my own interpretation of the orchestral colours."

Brewaeys certainly succeeded in coming up with creative sonorities, much more so than others who have orchestrated piano originals. The results are very satisfying, in fact splendid, and I highly recommend this very welcome recording. But as with all such orchestral transformations, the simple fact that the piano is inescapably percussive means that notes played on its highest octave have a very different sound when violins play them at the same pitches; the timbres of the instruments of a symphony orchestra are extremely different from those of the piano; and the dynamic range of an orchestra of course vastly exceeds that of a piano. Thus this version of the Preludes sounds very different from the original – but still sounds very much like Debussy's orchestral works, to my ears.

So the question remains: why does Brewaeys call his work a "recomposition" rather than an orchestration, the more expected term? If you have heard it, is he right? I would welcome any comments.

Copyright © 2006, R. James Tobin

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/t/tal81004a.php

[EigenUser]

No, all of those things exist (though I only have recordings of the latter two). As Ken B says the Das Lied arrangement is by Schoenberg, who also took things the other way (scaling a Brahms piano quartet up into a very un-Brahmsian orchestra piece, his own 1st Chamber Symphony into a much less interesting Orchestra Symphony etc).

Yours looks not bad but I don't know how I'd do the 4th movement without a bass clarinet. >.> I was also thinking of substituting for the existing ending a more depressing one based on the coda to the 2nd Cello Concerto/15th Symphony (with all the tick-tock percussion), something I think Mitya might have approved of later in life judging from his comments about the ending of Boris Godunov.

Anyway, another arrangement that has fascinated me for a while is Jean Françaix's arrangement of the Chopin preludes for orchestra—partly because some of them just don't work at all. But how do you even arrange Chopin for orchestra without changing the patterns significantly to be more idiomatic? Is it even possible? I find that quite interesting to ponder, even though it's probably not the point.

Yeah, this was done before I really got into studying the orchestral works of Ravel. Up until that point I only felt comfortable with strings and percussion. Not only bass clarinet, but an entire wind/brass annex would be nice. And a more depressing coda? I think that this one's pretty depressing! 

I also orchestrated Ligeti's Etude No. 2 "Cordes a Vide" for full orchestra last month (with offstage french horn and viola). It came out so-so. I've finished it horizontally (start to finish), but not necessarily vertically. It's very sparse and there's a lot I could do with it. 

[EigenUser]

I decided to make a two-piano reduction of the 1st movement of Shosty 9. My friend came over a few days ago and we played various two-piano things like "La Valse", "Cuban Overture", Stravinsky's "Scherzo a la Russe", etc. I thought that this would be fun.

A few years ago I almost finished a solo piano reduction of the 1st movement, but my hard drive crashed and it was one of the only things that wasn't backed up (not a huge loss, but annoying). Fortunately, I printed out a few pages while I was working on it, so I have that to work from.

I first thought of doing a 1-piano 4-hands version (i.e. two people sitting at the same piano), but I figured that I should take advantage of both pianos. 1P4H gets crowded!

[Brian]

Some arrangements, etc., that I've thought about casually or seriously worked on, mentally, not on paper:
- new orchestration of Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody, recalibrated to redefine "over-the-top"
- Beethoven's Op. 109 variations for string quartet
- Beethoven's violin concerto for cello, or for violin but in other keys

Yesterday my brain subconsciously began converting the "Furiant" from Dvorak's Sixth Symphony into a wind quintet. The adagio was even easier.

[Dax]

http://www.sendspace.com/file/jlg6qz

Beethoven on Javanese gamelan.

And here's the Esso Trinidad Steel Band playing some Khachaturian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZd_Wpgd3EU

And Tchaikovsky played on percussion

http://www.sendspace.com/file/ke0tty

[torut]

Bach's works might have been arranged/transcribed countless times. I like these recordings.

by Hess, Kempff, Cohen, Berners, Howells, Walton, Ireland, Howe, d'Albert, Bauer, Hewitt
[asin]B00005N8CU[/asin]

by Robert Simpson
[asin]B00004WMWO[/asin]

I am interested in arrangements of Cello Suite for contrabass and barition sax but have not tried them yet.

[relm1]

If you happened to hear a broadcast of some of this recording, not having heard of it before, and supposing also that you were not intimately familiar with the two books of Preludes which Debussy wrote for the piano but were in fact quite familiar with all the orchestral work of Debussy – and Ravel – you might be almost beside yourself trying to identify what you were hearing. Even if you are in fact quite familiar with the Preludes you still might have difficulty. For myself, knowing very well what works I was hearing on this recording, I still was very surprised to hear a familiar-sounding passage that brought La Mer to mind – with all its power – and another that reminded me of Ravel's La Valse – among many fresh sounds.

Luc Brewaeys' respect for Debussy's work is such that in producing this version of the Preludes – first performed in Brussels at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in late 2004 and late 2005 – he "decided not to touch Debussy's notes." No doubling, even. "There's not a single octave in the score, which was not written by Debussy himself….also during the loud passages where the temptation to add notes for additional effect is great: I mainly searched for very specific, original combinations of sounds within the orchestral forces." He says that "it wasn't my intention to orchestrate the works as Debussy would have done himself. I wanted to give my own interpretation of the orchestral colours."

Brewaeys certainly succeeded in coming up with creative sonorities, much more so than others who have orchestrated piano originals. The results are very satisfying, in fact splendid, and I highly recommend this very welcome recording. But as with all such orchestral transformations, the simple fact that the piano is inescapably percussive means that notes played on its highest octave have a very different sound when violins play them at the same pitches; the timbres of the instruments of a symphony orchestra are extremely different from those of the piano; and the dynamic range of an orchestra of course vastly exceeds that of a piano. Thus this version of the Preludes sounds very different from the original – but still sounds very much like Debussy's orchestral works, to my ears.

So the question remains: why does Brewaeys call his work a "recomposition" rather than an orchestration, the more expected term? If you have heard it, is he right? I would welcome any comments.

Copyright © 2006, R. James Tobin

http://www.classical.net/music/recs/reviews/t/tal81004a.php

I have this recording and thought it was very well adapted to orchestra.  I suppose Luc Brewaeys does not use the term orchestration because his intent was not to simulate what Debussy might have done but to re-imagine it as if it was Brewaeys own music that he set out to orchestrate. 

Some of the arrangements blend in style to other older arrangements such as those by Lucien Caillet, and William Smith though I prefer those most likely because they were my first encounter with the orchestral versions and have great simplicity and atmosphere from the Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra recordings from the 1960s.  I also want to hear the Collin Matthews arrangement which is on spotify but haven't heard it yet. 

[relm1]

I have done quite a few orchestrations and arrangements including Rachmaninoff Prelude No. 10 in B minor, op. 32 for full orchestra and some Shostakovich, Bach, Mussorgsky, Puccini (suite of five of his operas into a ten minute orchestral overture).  I actually greatly enjoy arranging and it is a wonderful way to immerse yourself in the music one loves.  I would love to arrange Shostakovich's Suite for Two Pianos as a 28 minute symphony and Prokofiev's Piano Sonata No. 8 for large orchestra.  Both of these feel symphonic to me but there are issues of copyright ownership that would prevent me from doing this without permission which isn't that easy to get since the copyright owners are not very clear for soviet era music.

[Mandryka]

I have this recording and thought it was very well adapted to orchestra.  I suppose Luc Brewaeys does not use the term orchestration because his intent was not to simulate what Debussy might have done but to re-imagine it as if it was Brewaeys own music that he set out to orchestrate. 

Some of the arrangements blend in style to other older arrangements such as those by Lucien Caillet, and William Smith though I prefer those most likely because they were my first encounter with the orchestral versions and have great simplicity and atmosphere from the Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra recordings from the 1960s.  I also want to hear the Collin Matthews arrangement which is on spotify but haven't heard it yet.

I enjoyed Collin Matthews, I really like Hans Zender's Debussy arrangements. Part of the reason is that he's not afraid to use percussive efefcts to highlight strands of the music, neither is he afraid to use some almost astringent timbres. Same for his orchestration of Schumann's Fantasie.

[Mandryka]

Bach's works might have been arranged/transcribed countless times. I like these recordings.

by Hess, Kempff, Cohen, Berners, Howells, Walton, Ireland, Howe, d'Albert, Bauer, Hewitt

[asin]B00005N8CU[/asin]

I agree, this is a nice thing to hear.

Kempff recorded some of his own transcriptions. The ones he did for DG are not so interesting but the earlier ones are astonishingly good, and well worth seeking out. A few but not all were on his Great Pianists Edition, but the best way to hear them is through this transfer which has recently been released. I assure you, this is excellent.