Frank Bridge - The Hour Glass: Dusk (orchestration)

Hi Music Maestros!

Just wanted to post my latest orchestration, which I only started on Thursday: so it every rough and ready.

This is from a piano piece in three movements by Frank Bridge, and I've so far tackled only the first movement.

Planning to do the rest soon.

I think it's a beautiful piece, that's not very well known, and has, to my knowledge, never been orchestrated before.

I'm hoping Peter may be able to give some advice on whether my French horn parts are playable, because they go a bit high.

Also my trombone and viola parts are sometimes in the uppermost range.

Have taken quite a few liberties with my arrangement, including tempo adjustments, additional notes, retiming transitions, and new counter-melodic lines.

Without these changes, the orchestration doesn't work well, as it's quite challenging to adapt from piano.

Some of my fermatas will be replaced by ten. markings (which Bridge himself uses in the original).

Dynamic markings are intended for midi playback only: so I will be adjusting those.

My flute is getting buried in the mix towards the end: so I will be adjusting that. But any other mix advice would be very helpful. I wonder, should I lower the threshold on my compressor, as the dynamic range is very wide?

Anyway, hope you enjoy, and hopefully I've introduced some new people to this lovely work.

Frank Bridge - Dusk #24 (added ZL compressor).pdf

Edited 48 minutes ago48 min by Alex Weidmann

Hi @Alex Weidmann !

Nice job on this orchestration. The horns do not go very high - only up to concert Bb which will be an F on the top line of the treble clef transposed to F. Thanks for sharing!