Orchestration...

Does anybody still reorchestrate piano transcriptions for the heck of it? It's really a great practice, and might just come in handy when someday you need a score that's out of print. Which tends to usually happen to me, I play lots of pieces that the score is completely missing. I find it very rewarding, to see just a piano part and then hear it orchestrated.

Anybody else do this?

I did recently. It's definitely good practice.

What I find difficult is representing the original piece in character, though.

Hmm, when you say "reorchestrate piano transcriptions", do you mean doing a new orchestration of a piece that was originally an orchestra piece and then reduced for piano?

I've actually never done that, but there are also many piano pieces that look very much like orchestral reductions, even if they aren't. Sometimes they were pieces that were originally meant to be orchestrated, but the composer didn't have enough time for that then (as it supposedly might have been with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition), others may be pieces where the composer just imagined an orchestral sound, but had to do with a piano for practical reasons.

In our instrumentation class at the conservatory we did many orchestrations of such pieces, which I always found enjoyable. The question is always how much you want to lean to the "simple orchestration side" (i.e. basically just assigning instruments to the notes you already have in the piano part), and how much to the "arrangement" side, where you take some more freedoms, turn some more pianistic idioms into more orchestral ideas and interpret the notes in a new fashion altogether.

That's why I think the question of "representing a piece in character", is only as important as you want it to be in a particular transcription. You are always automatically "breaking the character" somewhat by turning a solo piece into a piece for large orchestra, and depending how you go about it, it might not even be your goal to retain the original character, but maybe to pull something quite new out of the original material.

I've transcribed piano scores in my orchestration class and enjoyed it, but I don't think I'll do it that much on my own. No time.

I always write directly for the instruments the work is going to have.... Orchestra - Orchestra, Piano - Piano, etc....

But maybe I should practice doing reductions or the inverse.

Honestly I enjoy orchestrating more than composing... I just kinda know what sounds good on what instrument.

Does anybody else hear the natural continuation between bassoon and the oboe? Or flute and clarinet... you usually see these two pairs quite often. Trombones and cellos together are good too. Bassoon and cello, eh, for me, not so much, it blends better if the horns are playing.

I usually have a hard time reorchestrating percussion sections.

Have you guys read the principles or Orchestration by Korsakov? really good stuff in there. If you do alot of orchestrating you'll probably hear yourself saying yeah, that's obvious.

Violas and English horn are great too!

Have you guys read the principles or Orchestration by Korsakov? really good stuff in there.