8 posts tagged “arrangements”
Stephen Heller (1813-1888) is, it seems, but little known today, having been largely forgotten by even the time of his own death, nearly a hundred and twenty years ago. He was fairly prolific, however, and, at least for his time, was rather influential. While for myself, I can't claim any great fondness for his larger compositional works, I find that among his short studies and preludes are several pieces I enjoy. Most of them are less than two minutes, many less than one, and yet I still find several charming, and find that they say what they need to in that small window. Perhaps it's only me, or to my taste, but should anyone share it, I will offer here two such little works.
The first is as he wrote it, a brief piano statement, allegretto con spirito, in A minor, being no. 17 of his Op. 47 collection of twenty-five studies for "Rhythm and Expression". It's approximately 52 seconds in length. I am thinking about arranging it as a violin and 'cello duet, but for the moment, for anyone interested, here it is for piano:
The other piece, no. 10, Mit rascher Leichtigkeit hingeworfen, in der Art eine Federeichnung, in C# minor, from his Op. 81, 24 Preludes in all keys, was originally written for piano, though I have chosen to render it somewhat differently. I was thinking originally to make it another installment in my series of doing classical works on the six-string bass (first, second), but, alas, not being Billy Sheehan I don't have quite the requisite speed or precision in my right-handed tapping on a bass to pull it off. Yet the form of this piece, I think, makes it particularly well-suited to the guitar family of instruments, so while I couldn't manage it on the bass, I thought perhaps it would make for an acoustic guitar arrangement. Unable to find an acceptable range for the piece however that would allow me to render it as a solo work on that instrument, I've split it into a duet. I've set the left hand line of the piano to a twelve string guitar played with a pick (for both guitars I have gone with steel strings, as I can't get the crispness of this piece from the nylon strings more typical of classical guitar: note that I'm not saying it's impossible, only that I can't do it). For the right hand, the primary melodic line, I have set it to a six string acoustic played with a plucking finger-style. To get the best range on the guitar, I also transposed this to E from the original C#, minor in both cases. The playtime is exactly one minute.
Finally, to close this with something rather more palatable to the ears than my recent fumbling about, I offer my favorite interpretation of Monti's "Csárdás", performed by the incredibly talented Maxim Vengerov and three of the members of Bassiona Amorosa (with the fab. Roman Patkoló carrying the solo bass), demonstrating that, like the electric bass, the orchestral contrabass is capable of much more than its traditional role of playing a background and supportive role.
Though I've played guitar, and a few other strings, a number of years, I must admit this is an entirely new (to me) method of fretting!
Feverish and frustrated last night, coming from the flu into bronchitis on top of myriad other issues and irritations from things going wrong or badly with friends and family, I turned, as I sometimes do, to a bit of "key banging" as an outlet for said frustration.
For any curious, I ended up recording the result, which is here, Mens turbulenta. (Now, with a preliminary recording of a string quintet arrangement of the score.)
Nothing especially clever tonight, alas, just an idle bit of time wasting. You could think of this as what happens when you mix together varying amounts of sleep deprivation, recovering-from-illness, Erik Satie, Chopin and myself---or, "Raindropédienne", perhaps, for short (a combination of Chopin's 15th prelude, the "Raindrop" prelude, with Satie's first Gymnopédie and Gnossienne). It's a small piano work with an ABA structure; in A---a liberal treatment of Am---the left hand is a simple motion similar to the bass of the Gnossienne, while the melody is almost a verbatim transposition of the opening melody of the prelude. In B, we briefly modulate to Cm, and a tiny microcosmic ABA form of its own, where in Ba the bass is a slight variant on the initial bass of the C#m modulation in the prelude, while the right hand takes on a transposed variation on the Gnossienne melody; in Bb, the bass continues to follow the prelude but becomes a transposition of the material from the left hand of the molto tenuto movement of that work, and the melody becomes a Lydian transposition of the right hand theme of the Gymnopedie.
Other than doing the transpositions, stitching the disparate parts together and touching up a note here or there where the original themes didn't quite mesh, there's so little of myself in this piece I hardly feel right putting my name on it. As a result, I won't be adding this piece to my formal catalogue of works, naturally, but it was a fairly pleasant exercise and not quite the hand-mangler Für Elise on the bass proved to be, so I thought I'd tip up a copy here for any who might be interested.
Courtesy of Beethoven, the 6-string, a high-C, pinched harmonics, Cubase, the Zoom B2.1u, the Morley (though only as a volume pedal, for the crescendos and diminuendos), several takes and enough pain meds to make my hands usable tonight. Enjoy.
Evening, or morning perhaps, depending on your location. Have just finished a second revision + recording of an arrangement I've been working on, the passacaglia of HIF von Biber's Rosenkranz Sonaten; originally for a solo violin, I've reworked the piece as a quintet for two violins, viola, violoncello and contrabass (also transposing, in the process, to Cm), working from Tufvesson's transcription of the original from the unique manuscript (Mus. MS 4123, c. 1670s) in the Bavarian State Library in Munich. I think, if I can find the time, I will subject the work to at least one more revision/recording, as there are a few places where the 'cello is more subdued than I would like it, but beyond that I think it's very near its final form at this stage. Comments on the work, good or ill, welcome and appreciated.
Enchanted by Camille Saint-Saëns's work for solo piano, "Carillon", I recently decided to have a go at arranging the work for different instrumentations, resulting in both an orchestral arrangement and an arrangement for string quintet (2vn, va, vc, cb). In the end I think each, these as well as the piano original, has a certain charm of its own, though perhaps I'm biased: what do you think?
Postscript: I've also arranged his "Toccata" piano solo for strings.
