Another pointless arrangement/transcription?

[ardcarp]

Nicely chosen bits, Dave!
Silly thoughts aside, Turangalila has always been right up there with my favourites. If ever I had a big enough/good enough band to conduct, that would be my choice...oh. that and The Rite of Spring.

[Joseph K]

Incidentally, classical guitar would be a much poorer thing without arrangements and transcriptions from other instruments.

[Dave2002]

Just listened to the "offending" piece which fired up this thread. It's not a transcription by Arkady Volados at all, but rather by Samuil Feinberg - a contemporary of Stravinsky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuil_Feinberg. I think there are perhaps only three transcriptions by Feinberg of movements from Tchaikovsky's symphonies.

Obviously it doesn't have the power, dynamic range or antiphonal effects of the orchestral version, but I was expecting something less exciting given the somewhat discouraging notes earlier up thread. I thought Volodos played it superbly - brilliant stuff. Now I can't remember if I ever saw him play. I know I intended to, but did I get to, or did he cry off. Would probably have been in LA if I did, or did he come to London in recent years? I'd definitely go to hear him again, even perhaps travelling to the USA to do so - now there's a thought. When will we be able to do that again safely?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Just listened to the "offending" piece which fired up this thread. It's not a transcription by Arkady Volados at all, but rather by Samuil Feinberg - a contemporary of Stravinsky. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuil_Feinberg. I think there are perhaps only three transcriptions by Feinberg of movements from Tchaikovsky's symphonies.

Obviously it doesn't have the power, dynamic range or antiphonal effects of the orchestral version, but I was expecting something less exciting given the somewhat discouraging notes earlier up thread. I thought Volodos played it superbly - brilliant stuff. Now I can't remember if I ever saw him play. I know I intended to, but did I get to, or did he cry off. Would probably have been in LA if I did, or did he come to London in recent years? I'd definitely go to hear him again, even perhaps travelling to the USA to do so - now there's a thought. When will we be able to do that again safely?

The CD with him playing it consists largely of transcriptions and also has his own transcription / Fantasia / extempore of Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca - a finger-buster to cap all finger-busters . It also has his version/transcription of Horowitz’s version of the famous Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody. Horowitz didn’t think it difficult / flashy enough . If memory serves Volodos takes it up a notch further. I think in one interview Volodos says he never programmes a piece without playing ALL the works of the composer - be it Schubert , Beethoven , Liszt whoever .Apparently it doesn’t take long....

[Leinster Lass]

I've just watched 'Farewell To Stromness' played by a guitar quartet - pleasant enough, but for me it lacks the sense of desolation conveyed so much more clearly by a piano alone, and I'm not sure a guitar is necessarily the best instrument for producing a genuine 'Scotch snap'. It's not for me to judge whether or not that's a good thing, but I know which version I prefer. I'm not against arrangements/transcriptions as such, but some seem to add nothing to, or actually detract from, the experience provided by the work in its original form. I was unaware that the item on 'Breakfast' was not produced by Mr Volodos himself.

[Braunschlag]

I heard a few snippets of a pointless choral ‘arrangement’ of VW’s Tallis Fantasia on R4 Front Row tonight. All credit to the engineer, none whatsoever to the arranger. An utterly futile arrangement.

[Bryn]

I heard a few snippets of a pointless choral ‘arrangement’ of VW’s Tallis Fantasia on R4 Front Row tonight. All credit to the engineer, none whatsoever to the arranger. An utterly futile arrangement.

The arranger was presumably trying to get her or his own back on the Kronos Quartet for what they did to Tallis's Spem in Alium.

[Bryn]

Not always so pointless: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...752#post820752

[vinteuil]

Not always so pointless: http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...752#post820752

... and this one -

Just arrived and now spinning in 2 channel DSD mode, the Bruno Walter piano 4-hands arrangement. The recording was made in MDGs proprietary 2+2+2 3 dimensional sound format but I have not yet got around to setting up the speaker distribution (lower left and right front, upper left and right front, and mid-height left and right rear).



Of course, you only get to know the surround sound layer is in 2+2+2 format when you open the booklet, note the on-screen information reads "Channels: 6", rather than "5.0" or notice that if your speakers are set up for 5.0, it just does not sound right. The outer packaging merely carries the usual SACD logo and legend. Still, that's a minor moan. I rather like the concept of 2+2+2.

[gradus]

With Ravel I find that I like piano and orchestral versions equally and Mahler songs sound right to me with piano or orchestra but I don't care for an arrangement of the Schumann op 17 Fantasy for string band and Nimrod arrangements for choir or brass band don't do anything for me. Not that keen on organ arrangements of orchestral pieces either.

[ardcarp]

Not that keen on organ arrangements of orchestral pieces either.

They were, however, the bread and butter of many Edwaardian organ recitals, and arrangements are still in print. Most organists will have played Elgar's Nimrod on numerous occasions...mainly for funerals. One transcription which does work well for organ is Walton's Crown Imperial. But be warned! Herbert Murrill's arrangement gets the opening rhythm wrong...which needs correcting where it occurs throughout the piece.

[Pulcinella]

With Ravel I find that I like piano and orchestral versions equally and Mahler songs sound right to me with piano or orchestra but I don't care for an arrangement of the Schumann op 17 Fantasy for string band and Nimrod arrangements for choir or brass band don't do anything for me. Not that keen on organ arrangements of orchestral pieces either.

Me too.
I understand Joseph's point about transcriptions when there is little other music available (classical guitar), but there is such a wealth of organ music that to include transcriptions in a concert/recital (wasn't one of this year's Proms basically such?) seems unnecessary and unwarranted imho.

[Braunschlag]

Me too.
I understand Joseph's point about transcriptions when there is little other music available (classical guitar), but there is such a wealth of organ music that to include transcriptions in a concert/recital (wasn't one of this year's Proms basically such?) seems unnecessary and unwarranted imho.

Entirely agree about organ arrangements (‘transcription’ gives it a false air of superiority when it’s basically re-arranging the score). I suppose when there’s so much third rate organ music around (Elgar, Mendelssohn, Rheinberger etc) it must be difficult to find something convincing ( I speak as an organist who saw the light years ago and discovered far more worthy musical avenues). Trotting out the old ‘it was the only way you could hear those pieces in the 19th century’ is a bit of a lame duck nowadays, you can hear anything, anywhere, anytime. If I see a transcription listed on a recital programme (which is a novelty anyway, knowing what they are going to play in advance that is), I won’t go. I’m expecting to hear organ music of quality, not an arrangement.

[BBMmk2]

I’ve transcribed for concert band the First Movement from Mahler’s Sixth and aim to transcribe the First Movement from Mahler’s 2nd! Also that last twenty odd minutes from Mahler’s 3rd!

[kernelbogey]

The heyday of the piano transcription was when music had to be heard live or not at all, so it gave more people the opportunity to hear music they might seldom if ever come across in the concert hall or opera house, as well as the opportunity to show off pianistic and transcriptional skills. My favourite ones are Liszt's versions of Schubert and Paganini, because here Liszt was working with fine material (better than his own by far IMO!) and could indulge his textural imagination to the maximum degree.....

Important point in RB's first sentence. In my teens, browsing the music section of our public library in Falmouth, i came across the score of a transcription (maybe by Liszt) of LvB 7 for eight hands!. I wonder how that got there: being remote from London and other muscial centres, Falmouth would likely have hosted a fiery quartet of pianists bringing that symphony to the benighted Corrnish folks . (And there's that story of Liszt dancing to it while Brahms played!)

I have been castigated before on these boards for my low opinion of Liszt's music: but I agree with Richard about his transcriptions, too few of which I know. I love his transcription of Schubert's song Staendchen, in which he beautifully weaves together the vocal and piano lines, to the extent that it almost transcends the original.

I serendipitously heard in a New York Bookshop c1974 Isao Tomita's album Snowflakes are Dancing, transcriptions of Debussy for Moog synthesizer and Mellotron. Bizarrely, this was the first time I had heard the Debussy pieces in any form - and so bought it there and then - and now I like the originals, but can kind of hear the Tomita behind the piano sound when I hear the original.