Orchestral arrangement of Sibelius' "The Spruce"

hello folks, while I'm working on some exciting big projects, I found this absolutely heart-gripping piece by Sibelius. It instantly found a deep part of my soul. I wanted to arrange it as some parts could be instantly imagined in my head. Some others where hard to execute with such beauty as the original performance, but i wanted to try.

Original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vD7jiXWqhPs

Arrangement:https://youtu.be/vZcKCGwQsrA

The Spruce.pdf

Edited Friday at 03:26 PM3 days by Some Guy That writes Music

Hi! Would you mind sharing the PDF? It’s really hard to see any of the notes or details clearly based on the YouTube score.

9 minutes ago, MK_Piano said:

Hi! Would you mind sharing the PDF? It’s really hard to see any of the notes or details clearly based on the YouTube score.

sure thing! it's fixed

Hi @Some Guy That writes Music !

I am not gonna comment anything on scoring or engraving since it's my so weakness and @MK_Piano will comment on that anyways lol.

I have zero experience in arrangement too so my following comment is merely subjective. I think the beginning can really be accompanied by a harp. Will you think of having the piece in C minor? Then the violins can play the melody with the lowest G, and I think that will be stronger than the viola melody unless it's played by its C string. i personally would want that intensity of tone with the lowest string of either violin or viola given how beautiful Sibelius's melody is, but it's just me 😛. I actually think of having the b.33 melody played by English Horn AND cello as well as I love the high register of cello haha. I think for the catastrophe in b.45 polyrhythm can be introduced with some triplets and sextuplets (and possibly quintuplts too) beneath the semiquaver figure as to capture that effect in the original piece. For b.59 I actually think of the melody played a single horn as in Brahms' 3rd Symphony to capture that solitude, since strings is always used before for the melody.

Thx for sharing this arrangement! Also, thx for introducing this piece, it's fxxingly beautiful!

Henry

I see you've encountered the annoying bug, where MuseScore duplicates the tempo directions, and propagates them down through the score for no obvious reason.

You can get rid of these by selecting each tempo element in the Layout side-pane, and hitting delete. (You'll find them sandwiched between the instruments.)

As to the music, it's a lovely piece, and I enjoyed listening; but I think your rendition could be improved.

At Bar 50 (for example), you have crotchets in the strings interspersed with quaver rests.

These sound very unnatural, because the sound cuts out too abruptly.

I'd be inclined to make these dotted crotchets, and add diminuendo hairpins below each one to taper off the note. Then reset the dynamics on the next note.

Your staccato tenutos on the strings around Bar 38 have a similar problematic effect: so I would lose those.

Hope that helps,

Alex.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Alex Weidmann