Quote:
Originally Posted by J. Lee Graham
You know, I was thinking just the other day of re-orchestrating Tchaikowsky's "Pathetitique" Symphony. I fervently believe it needs just a bit more of something to achieve its full potential.
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That's funny - I remember a workshop on that symphony with the British conductor Charles Hazlewood. He was doing a little 'adjusting' of the wind instrumentation! (an example, if memory serves, is his changing of bassoon for bass clarinet in one passage.)
As for your Messiah orchestration.....I don't know if I see the point. I love Mozart's version, although it's very much suited to *its* time, and not as much the succeeding generations. Of course this is true of all such good arrangements. Why do you want to make yours larger than Beecham's? Triple winds etc. is already just about as big as you get. Why not do something that actually fits the spirit of our time, when composers are turning away from the ridiculous bombast of 7,000 piece orchestras, and using more and more smaller chamber ensembles?
I don't see that adding bombast will help anything. In any case, using a smaller ensemble will bring you back closer to Handel's orchestration (which I'm happy with the way it is).