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Evan Johnson
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« Reply #15 on: 10:20:28, 12-11-2008 » |
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I've been idly considering for some time making a book of piano transcriptions of Ars subtilior music. Want to commission it for your program?  What about the Stravinsky Petrushka pieces? I can't remember how much of the orchestration (as opposed to the solo piano part of the original) they encompass, but... |
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #16 on: 10:24:24, 12-11-2008 » |
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I've been idly considering for some time making a book of piano transcriptions of Ars subtilior music. Want to commission it for your program? Never mind that, Evan, do Spem in alium. It'll be a hit.  |
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martle
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« Reply #17 on: 10:26:41, 12-11-2008 » |
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What about the Stravinsky Petrushka pieces? I can't remember how much of the orchestration (as opposed to the solo piano part of the original) they encompass, but...
The answer is, one hell of a lot, and perhaps too much to have made the piece in any way playable by mortals.  But, it is a terrific transcription. Nice idea. |
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Green. Always green.
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autoharp
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« Reply #18 on: 10:34:04, 12-11-2008 » |
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What exactly are you asking for?
A. Extant piano music that is a transcription from non-piano music?
B. Non-piano music that lends itself particularly well to transcription for piano?
C. Extant transcriptions from piano to non-piano?
D. Piano music that lends itself particularly well to transcription for non-piano?
E. Alluv the abuv
Yes. I'm probably being thick, but I'm not really sure what you're after (specifically). It doesn't help that words like arrangement and transcription tend to have different meanings depending on who's using 'em. A thread we had last year http://r3ok.myforum365.com/index.php?topic=2269.msg77360#msg77360in which I posted the following The best arrangements improve on the original. Yes, it is possible.
The worst arrangements? (No, don't get me started).
I tend to view a transcription* as involving creativity/composition as distinct from arrangement, which implies little above mere tranference from one medium to another. Trouble is that many are very sloppy in their use of these words and they have become interchangeable.
*itself distinct from writing down the dots from a recording.
One thing that comes to mind (not what you're after, but the implications may be of interest), since I've just done it for a class - a kind of Orchestration for Idiots if you like, is to view Liszt's Nuages gris as a lost chamber/chamber orchestral work for which only the piano arrangement exists. It's a good example since 1) no octave transpositions are necessary 2) despite the sparseness of the writing, Liszt runs out of hands on the second page 3) the colours demanded set the imagination racing - combinations of instruments etc. and so on + so forth. This may be irrelevant because this is coming from the angle of doing a simple piece of orchestration. On the other hand, it could be useful for the pianist in terms of thinking about colour on a simple or even complex level. So many pianists don't bother with this approach. |
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martle
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« Reply #19 on: 11:00:04, 12-11-2008 » |
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I'm probably being thick, but I'm not really sure what you're after (specifically). I'm after any good, stimulating, innovative or otherwise imaginative piano arrangements/ transcriptions or whatever you want to call them. As I say, the course is ultimately about writing well and inventively for the piano. All this material will be acting as a stimulus. Thanks for that, auto - I'd forgotten about that thread! And the Liszt Nuages Gris idea will do nicely for my Uni orchestration class.  (What's your fee, again?) |
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Green. Always green.
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strinasacchi
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« Reply #20 on: 11:14:57, 12-11-2008 » |
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Ugh, radio 3 is currently playing a piano version of the nutcracker suite. I thought I had escaped that piece forever when I switched to baroque violin (I used to play with, among other groups, a ballet orchestra...).
I'd pass on the details, martle, except I think I'll be switching over to radio 4 very very soon.
Like right now. Ah, the relief.
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thompson1780
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« Reply #21 on: 11:44:12, 12-11-2008 » |
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I've always found Busoni's transcription of the Bach Chaconne interesting. Rather than a transcription from many instruments with many different timbres to one piano, it is from a solo violin to a solo piano. And yet it still manages to sound utterly different.
I like Godowsky's stuff too - isn't there an 'Invitation to the Dance' that is rather superb?
Tommo
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Made by Thompson & son, at the Violin & c. the West end of St. Paul's Churchyard, LONDON
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ahinton
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« Reply #22 on: 14:57:25, 12-11-2008 » |
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Leopold Godowsky did a few double Chopin etudes, which I dare say is where Hamelin got the idea from. Indeed, in both cases. Godowsky is known to have written two transcriptions in which two Chopin studies are combined (of which the "Badinage" conflation of the so-called "Black Key" and "Butterfly" studies, both in the key of G flat major, is by far the better known and more successful) but there are thought to be at least another 11 more Chopin study treatments by him which have never been published and whose whereabouts (if any) appear to be unknown (other than to the owner/s of the mss., if any); three of Chopin's studies are in the key of A minor and among these "missing" Godowsky Chopin treatments is thought to be a study combining all of them, which is what specifically prompted Hamelin to write his Triple Étude after Chopin. Curiously, I had tried to make one myself back in 1977 and called it Les Trois Chopins but I deposited the results in the waste bin some time after this when I discovered that Godowsky was supposed to have made one that might appear one day. When Hamelin discovered this, he expressed his disappointment that I had discarded it and so I reconstructed it from memory in an improved version that also makes sideswiping allusions to quite a few other Chopin studies along the way; I entitled this Étude en form de Chopin and dedicated it to Hamelin who, sadly, has yet to play it and claims that he is incapable of doing so (an admission that surely lacks all sense of credibility)... |
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autoharp
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« Reply #23 on: 15:00:04, 12-11-2008 » |
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I like Godowsky's stuff too - isn't there an 'Invitation to the Dance' that is rather superb?
There certainly is, as well as Bach Suites, both violin + cello - and Strauss waltzes. All transcriptions. Arrangements include Liszt's versions of Beethoven symphonies: Zemlinsky's duet versions of Mahler symphonies - I'll stop now . . . |
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Jonathan
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« Reply #24 on: 16:20:08, 12-11-2008 » |
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I've been playing various solo piano arrangements of Liszt's symphonic poems - these are rather fun as well. Arrangers include Liszt himself, August Stradal, L.Stark and T.Forchammer (what a brilliant name!) Totally agree with the other Godowsky suggestions although I still don't see how some of the Chopin study arrangements are possible to play with only 2 hands! |
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Best regards,
Jonathan
*********************************************
"as the housefly of destiny collides with the windscreen of fate..."
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ahinton
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« Reply #25 on: 17:35:50, 12-11-2008 » |
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Totally agree with the other Godowsky suggestions although I still don't see how some of the Chopin study arrangements are possible to play with only 2 hands!
Clearly, Carlo Grante and Marc-André Hamelin (who have each recorded all of them) wouldn't agree with you! - although perhaps the only ones you might consider might be "possible to play with only 2 hands" are the 17 for left hand alone (I jest, of course!). Godowsky's transcriptions of Schubert songs are interesting too and lake a curious comparison with Liszt's in that they have a general tendency towards elaboration whereas Liszt's seem rather closer to the originals; I wouldn't be without either, frankly. As to the Godowsky Strauss waltz transcriptions - or rather Symphonic Metamorphoses (the rather grander [though by no means unjustifiably so] title that Godowsky gave them) stand head and shoulders above the many other transcriptions of these works that quite a few pianists wrote and performed (usually as encore pieces) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; their elegance, intricacy, sensitivity, ingenious contrapuntal elaborations and consistently exquisite voice-leading make them the sheer marvels that they are, elevating Johann Strauss II's delightful confections into the pianistic stratosphere while at the same time retaining much of the character of the originals - no mean achievement in itself (indeed, they almost remind me of a kind of keyboard-wizardry equivalent to Ravel's La Valse except that the latter is an original work rather than a transcription and the none of the former conclude by exploding the entire Viennese waltz tradition and all that went with it). The three principal ones (on Kunsterleben, Die Fledermaus and Wein, Weib und Gesang) are the main works on a recent CD by Hamelin on Hyperion where they are interspersed with pieces from Triakontameron and Walzermasken, Godowsky's own (i.e. non-transcribed) two cycles of waltz character pieces; Hamelin eschews Godowsky's transcription of Schatzwalzer from Die Zigeunerbaron for left hand alone as he doesn't consider this to be on the same level of inspiration as the other three. I would strongly recommend that recording to anyone interested in this repertoire. Hyperion being Hyperion, they had the good sense not try the marketing ploy of entitling the CD Strictly Come Waltzing... |
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Turfan Fragment
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« Reply #26 on: 17:43:58, 12-11-2008 » |
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Are Liszt's Schubert transcriptions really, pursuant to autoharp's tenet, 'improvements' of the original?
I think an enormous amount gets lost and I honestly don't see what they add. I realize I'm in the minority on that. I wouldn't say the same thing about his Verdi, Wagner, etc transcriptions.
Having said that, perhaps I haven't been listening to the right recordings? I have Jorge Bolet, who I don't think leaves much to be desired. I think the shortcomings are in the pieces themselves, the lack of tension with the singing voice. I don't know.
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ahinton
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« Reply #27 on: 18:05:50, 12-11-2008 » |
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Are Liszt's Schubert transcriptions really, pursuant to autoharp's tenet, 'improvements' of the original?
Not to my mind (such as it is) and they were certainly not intended to be. I think an enormous amount gets lost and I honestly don't see what they add. I realize I'm in the minority on that. I wouldn't say the same thing about his Verdi, Wagner, etc transcriptions.
Having said that, perhaps I haven't been listening to the right recordings? I have Jorge Bolet, who I don't think leaves much to be desired. I think the shortcomings are in the pieces themselves, the lack of tension with the singing voice. I don't know.
The question of which recordings you have listened to - entirely personal as that obviously has to be - is as vital for you as it is for anyone, but maybe if you try to think of them as commentaries on / translations of the originals, you might find more to them than you appear to do at present. |
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« Last Edit: 18:48:32, 12-11-2008 by ahinton »
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martle
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« Reply #28 on: 18:36:53, 12-11-2008 » |
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This is all tremendously useful (and interesting) stuff, folks. Many thanks. And keep it coming!
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Green. Always green.
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