Nocturne No. 1 in E Flat Minor by Gabriel Fauré (Orchestrated)

Hi all -

I’m back from a bit of a musical hiatus/summer break, and I wanted to share my latest orchestration project: Fauré’s Nocturne No. 1 in E-flat minor.

Some of you may remember an earlier orchestration of this piece posted on the forum by @Alex Weidmann which I also reviewed at the time. That version gave me some ideas and eventually inspired me to try orchestrating the piece myself, although I ended up taking my own approach to it.

I still think this is a surprisingly difficult piece to orchestrate. E-flat minor is not the friendliest orchestral key, particularly for the strings, harp, and transposing instruments. The piano writing also contains a lot of overlapping lines and inner details that cannot simply be transferred directly without the texture becoming too heavy.

As an additional challenge, I limited myself to a relatively small chamber orchestra: two flutes with piccolo doubling, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, harp, and strings. I was thinking loosely of the scale and transparency of Ravel’s orchestration of the Pavane pour une infante défunte, rather than trying to imitate its sound directly.

My goal was to preserve the intimate, nocturnal character of the original while passing the melodic material between solo winds, divided strings, and occasional string soloists. I also tried to avoid using the harp as a constant substitute for the piano, saving it instead for color and continuity.

I’m interested to hear what everyone thinks. The score and audio are attached—thanks for taking a look!

Full score.pdf

Now we have two Eb minor pieces right next to each other!

Congratulations on your arrangement.

Especially enjoyed your use of muted horns, and viola solos.

Seem to remember using the harp even more sparingly in my version.