Bach - fuge in g minor for orchestra Arr Bjarke Tan.

Hello there.

I made an arrangement of bach's little fuge in g minor as an orchestral practice.

Any feedback would be much appreciated regarding the orchestration. 

Thank you. 

Wow, you have managed to successfully get out of a seemingly very difficult task.
Doing a version of these composers is always a risk, but with an orchestral fugue even more so.

However, for me, the clarity of the melodic lines is very well defined. I don't know exactly how you approached it (by timbre and/or tesituras) but it works perfectly.

The only thing I'd like to point out is that the French horns are ungrouped for no apparent reason.
I also tell you that, personally, I would delete what you call Guide. 

 

I made a few updates since the last version.

can you clarify what you mean by ungrouped for the French horns? They are condensed in 1,2 and 3.4.

Thank you for the kind words.

@Luis Hernández

Hi @Bjarke,

This is a good arrangement of the piece. I'm just wondering why you sometimes cut off voices strictly, for example in p.7 b.2 I know that the voice for clarinet and trombones (plus others) is a false subject but maybe I will at add a G after the phrase, instead of having the phrase so clear cut, or in p.6 b.4 the horns and trombones cutting off seem strange to me. In p.8 b.2, if you have notated a2, then you don't have to use both stems to indicate the two horns. The trumpet there can just mark an a3, instead of having an additional a2 for 2, 3 there. The pizz. in p.11 for the lower strings seem too weak for the fugue subject and they will be overshadowed by the trombones and tuba. The harp for me seems unnecessary with not too much appearance in the piece. Also, maybe there will be breathing issues for the woodwind given how many notes they will have to play and how quickly the tonguing has to be, for example in p.10 b.4 to p.13 b.2 with 11 bars non-stop playing.

Nonetheless I enjoy this arrangement!

Henry

Thank you for the feedback.

I will look into it and come back with an update in the future 🙂

@ Henry Ng Tsz Kiu

Sounds great!

Though for my taste it feels a little too fast, like the orchestra is rushing through it.

Perhaps a slightly slower tempo might work better?