Your Six Favourite Orchestrations

[Sir Velo]

Prompted, in an idle moment, by a recent forum reference to Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms' Piano Quartet No. 1, I thought it might be amusing for forumites to come up with their favourite orchestrations (or transcriptions for orchestra). Here's five to get the ball rolling:

1. Brahms (orch. Schoenberg) Piano Qt in G minor
2. Bartok (orch. Bartok) Hungarian Sketches
3. Rachmaninov (orch. Respighi) Five Pieces from Etudes Tableaux
4. Schubert (orch. Webern) Six German Dances
5. Ravel (orch. Ravel) Valses Nobles et Sentimentales

[Dave2002]

That's a challenge and a half. I'm hard put to think of transcriptions/orchestrations without even thinking about whether they might be favourites. Also you have listed several of the most likely ones already, but you did miss:

6. Mussorgsky (orch. Ravel) Pictures at an exhibition.
7. Bach (orch. Stokowski) Fugues - several.
8. Beethoven - Grosse Fuge - various arrangements and orchestrations - usually for string orchestra.
9. Bach (arranged Walter/Wendy Carlos) - various - Switched on Bach.

Pictures at an exhibition has been rendered by many others - including Tomita, and also arranged for brass band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVvQQMrEUzQ

[Hornspieler]

Personally, I prefer to leave things as the composer wrote them.

The items mentioned so far reinforce that view.

HS

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Quilter: A Children's Overture
Elgar: Fantasia and Fugue (Bach)
Beecham/Goossens: Messiah (Handel)
Rimski-Korsakov: Night on a Bare Mountain (Mussorgsky)
Gordon Jacob: Organ Sonata (Elgar)
Eine Alpensinfonie: Grand Sonata in G (Tchaikovsky)

[MrGongGong]

The Webern transcription of Bach's Musical Offering works for me

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Personally, I prefer to leave things as the composer wrote them.

The items mentioned so far reinforce that view.

HS

We'd never hear the end of Turandot.

[gurnemanz]

I also thought first of Brahms (orch. Schoenberg) Piano Qt in G minor.
I've always enjoyed the orchestration of Schubert's Grand Duo for piano for 4 hands D812 and Abbado doing orchestrations of Schubert Lieder with Anne Sofie von Otter and Thomas Quasthoff is a favourite disc.

I'm sure some more will occur to me ...

[kea]

Brahms/Schoenberg - Piano Quartet op.25
Brahms/Berio - Clarinet Sonata op.120/1
Schubert/Joachim - Grand Duo
Schubert/Liszt - Wanderer Fantasy
Ives/Brant - Concord Sonata
Ravel/Ravel - Miroirs

Bonus:
Schumann/Holliger - Gesänge die Fruhe (not quite an orchestration...)
Schubert/Zender - Winterreise (again...)

Plus some de-orchestrations:
Bach/Sciarrino - Toccata & Fugue in D minor
Mahler/Schoenberg - Das Lied von der Erde

(And of course my as-yet unfinished arrangements of Brahms's 2nd symphony for string octet, Beethoven's Hammerklavier for piano and orchestra, etc )

I am actually quite curious to hear Robin Holloway's orchestration of Brahms's piano quintet op.34—I've seen a score, but I don't believe it's been recorded or even played.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I'm rather fond of William Schuman's witty orchestration of Ives's Variations on America and Rubbra's fine orchestration of Brahms's Handel Variations.

[mercia]

would Holst's orchestration of The Planets Suite count - didn't it start life as a piano duet ?

[Lento]

There was an arrangement of Ravel's Jeux d'eau on R3 a week or so ago that I thought detracted from rather than added to the music. I don't know whether it was by Viacava or someone else.

[Serial_Apologist]

Koechlin's orchestration of Debussy's "Khamma" dance legend - if anyone has "out-Debussied" Debussy in terms of sheer lusciousness, it would have to be Koechlin in this piece. Then there is the same composer's orchestrations (or part-orchestrations) of some of his master Faure's works, such as the "Pelleas et Melisande" - so modest and subtly sensitive for such a showman as Koechlin. The French are particularly good at this, imv: think of Caplet's orchestration of Debussy's "Boite a Joujoux". There's an argument for saying that the French composers are the world's greatest orchestrators - whether of their own or others' works.

[Nick Armstrong]

Ravel: Ravel "Tombeau de Couperin"

Webern: J.S. Bach Ricercar à 6 from 'The Musical Offering' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xobJeC4SnRA

Respighi: J.S. Bach Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582

Elgar: J.S. Bach Fantasia & Fugue in C minor, BWV 537

Schönberg: J.S. Bach "St Anne" Prelude & Fugue in E-Flat Major, BWV 552

Schönberg: Brahms Piano Quartet


I love a good transcription, me

[vinteuil]

I love a good transcription, me...

... I very much like the other kind of transcription - from orchestral or other to piano.

Such as -

Liszt transcriptions of Bach organ works

Liszt transcriptions of Beethoven symphonies (Yuri Martynov )

Reger transcriptions of Bach Brandenburgs etc (Piano Duo Trenkner/Speidel )

also Brahms's piano duet reworkings of his symphonies, chamber works, the German Requiem... )

[verismissimo]

For me a list of Liszt arrangements. Several of them bring something quite new.