Ok, I'm going to chime in (I've been busy ... ok AND lazy!)

If you haven't heard PROKOFIEV: SYMPHONY NO. 5, then you've missed out on one of the greatest works in classical repertoire, and my personal pick as the best 4 movement symphony ever written. While working for Basil Poledouris we shared some moments talking in depth about the score while we took a break preparing tracks and parts for STARSHIP TROOPERS. It is also his favorite symphony. He and I simultaneously, awkwardly, said the same thing, "there isn't a single bar without melody in the entire piece."

Caveat: If you want to HEAR this piece, I can really truly honestly tell you that there isn't but one recording that is any good. I am not sure why this is. I own over 5 recordings of it and have listened to more. I am 99% sure I have listened to all the recordings available, so at the very least trust that I am ahead of the pack with regards to knowing what recordings are out there. So I have to say that the others are not even decent performances, let alone decent recordings. It's a very difficult piece, and the power of it is in the conducting and balancing, once the players have mastered their parts. Then you hope for a good hall and nice mic placement. For whatever reason only one recording has done it all right, and all the others have done a less than average job in all categories.

So, the one to listen to is:

JAMES LEVINE conducts the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in PROKOFIEV'S SYMPHONIES NO.1 and NO.5

Don't bother listening to NO.1 before NO.5. Conductors like to program it that way because of the extreme contrasts, but that is a purely academic notion in my opinion. It actually detracts from the attention and focus needed towards the listening of the NO.5. Also, if you find yourself daydreaming or losing concentration during listening, PAUSE the CD, and come back to it another time. Every bar in this work is masterful. It'd be a shame to miss a passage anywhere. Especially I notice that PROKOFIEV seems to get more complex, more tasty, more interesting, more colorful, etc as each movement progresses towards each's own end, as if to invigorate the audience and stimulate them into staying focused.

How's that for a chime!

[:)]

Evan Evans

...!

Thanks for that tip on the Levine Prokofiev, I'm making a note of it. The best performance I've ever heard of the Mahler Sixth is also conducted by Levine. He's spent a lot of time in opera and is probably less well known for his other conducting.

@William said:

The best performance I've ever heard of the Mahler Sixth is also conducted by Levine. He's spent a lot of time in opera and is probably less well known for his other conducting.

William,

Do you have the NY Phil Bernstein 6th? I can imagine a different performance that is truly great but I can't imagine the spirit of the piece being more perfectly realized or the actual playing surpassed. This performance has a feel that is truly incredible.

One thing for sure: Mr Levine could not have been unaware of this recording. I would love to hear his version of the Mahler and Prokofiev. (I have Slatkin and St. Louis on the 5th which is a wonderful performance as well.)

Dave

@Nick Batzdorf said:

Isn't this sort of a silly distinction? What then do you call it if Stravinsky writes everything at the piano? Does plonking out notes disqualify what you're doing from being called orchestration?

(These are rhetorical questions, in case anyone was wondering... ) [[;)]]

I would add Stravinsky as one of the Great Orchestrator. Aaron Copland also composed at the piano.

csduke,

I completely agree with that about Stravinsky. Not only Le Sacre but also the Firebird always seemed to me a masterpiece of orchestration. By the way I have a recording of that which is one of those definitive, must-have recordings that make all others sound wrong - Stokowski's 70s era LP which also had Tchaikovski's Marche Slav and Stokowski's own orchestration of "Night onBald Mountain" which he claimed to have based on Mussorgski's original score (as opposed to the Rimsky Korsakov elaboration). You can never trust what Stokowski said, because he was such a showman, and I asked Gregory Stone, an old film composer/conductor who knew Stokowski and he said that Stokowski stole the score from him, so I guess it was true. But anyway, it has some of the most extreme orchestral playing I've ever heard, including the longest, most drawn-out horn rips at the end of the Firebird which are barely audible in most performances.

Dave,

I haven't heard that Bernstein recording of the 6th in a long time. I'm sure you're right about it, but this Levine one I mentioned (originally an LP) is also that great. Definitely one where the orchestra, conductor and recording all sound as if they are the same inseparable entity.

@csduke said:

I would add Stravinsky as one of the Great Orchestrator. Aaron Copland also composed at the piano.

Just a quick note to clarify that we were (I think) talking about composers who first wrote a piano score and further orchestrated it with said technique. Writing orchestral music "at the piano" is not the same as writing piano music at the piano.

I get waht you mean though and I agree that Stravinsky and Copland are great examples of composers who used solid orcehstration techniqes.

Both by the way were students of nadia Boulangier.

Evan Evans

@William said:

csduke,

I completely agree with that about Stravinsky. Not only Le Sacre but also the Firebird always seemed to me a masterpiece of orchestration. .

The sound Le Sacre has always amazing me. I've listened to a lot of 20th century orchestral music but with Le Sacre, its almost as if an alien from an advanced culture came to earth and composed it. As a kid, I imagined it as some exotic creature not as sections of an orchestra playing together. I've since learned to keep that to myself when in the company of medical professionals [[;)]]

@csduke said:

I would add Stravinsky as one of the Great Orchestrator. Aaron Copland also composed at the piano.

Just a quick note to clarify that we were (I think) talking about composers who first wrote a piano score and further orchestrated it with said technique. Writing orchestral music "at the piano" is not the same as writing piano music at the piano.

I get waht you mean though and I agree that Stravinsky and Copland are great examples of composers who used solid orcehstration techniqes.

Both by the way were students of nadia Boulangier.

Evan Evans
Right. There are at least three ways to work at the from the piano. 1) to make a piano sketch possibly including some orchestral direction and later orchestrate it, 2) use the piano for sound and write to a score and 3) play into a sequencer (a score of clips and pianos roll, not notes) - which uses a piano KB but sample sounds. In music school I was taught with the first two approaches - so many year ago.

I take the first and the third approach now. When I start with a sketch, I'm more organized, better know where I’m going, I can see the harmonies and can better see hidden relationships. As for the third approach, it make me compose more orchestrationally in some ways, I never know where I'm going (good and bad) but I lose a lot of visibility into the music because of the notation - or lack thereof, and it's harder to apply techniques (for me) since I cannot see all of the notes. I am trying to get back to sketching more though. Since I don't do this for a living I have less discipline than I should have. (hope I'm not getting too OT here).

As for Nadia Boulangier - wow. What was her secret? The number of 20th century composer she touched and taught is amazing. I've always wanted to read a biography of her since her name always pops up in composer biographies I read. One of my old composition teachers studied from her as I recal. Found this short list of her students: http://www.nadiaboulanger.org/nb/amstudents.html

"with Le Sacre, its almost as if an alien from an advanced culture came to earth and composed it."

I've had the same reaction. Stravinski's genius was to take everything the orchestra had done in all its previous history, smash it to pieces and create a new form of expression. Like the Indian god Shiva, who destroys the old to create the new.

@csduke said:

As for Nadia Boulangier - wow. What was her secret? The number of 20th century composer she touched and taught is amazing. I've always wanted to read a biography of her since her name always pops up in composer biographies I read. One of my old composition teachers studied from her as I recal. Found this short list of her students: http://www.nadiaboulanger.org/nb/amstudents.html

And if I haven;t mentioend it before, my teacher Lalo Schifrin, studied with her. he wasn't listed on this list so I thought I'd add that for posterity.

Evan Evans

I often think writing at the piano can lead you down certain paths, that pure desk work wouldn't and I don't always think that's a good thing. If you're a pianist to any level, I think you can endup using pianistic devices that sound fine but don't transfer well to other instruments. Part writing often suffers, as can chord voicing.

As I don't have pitch I need the piano in the corner to refer to, but use it like Feldman suggested, as a guide, not as a means of transport. Also it's intresting to note that Ravel's piano music is "pianistic" in a way the Stravinsky's isn't. The two piano version of The Rite is akward, and like listening in black and white, while the Noble & Sentimental waltzes by Ravel work fantasically well on the piano, for which they were first composed.
Ives too somtimes used the piano and then orchestrated after that, and sometimes the other way, fragments of orchestral works made it back into piano pieces.

Nick,
I agree that if you don't know what you're doing as an orchestrator then pianistic technique may influence your writing especially if you are a good pianist. This is probably what happened to some famous pianists who wrote for orchestra on occasion. Though I can't think of examples. Can you? Maybe Rubinstein. Not Lizst, that's for sure. His great orchestral writing especially in Les Preludes and the Faust Symphony was a huge inspiration to Mahler.

Wasn't Chopin's concerto (as oppposed to his great solo music) a little lackluster? Perhaps due to the fact that he didn't manage to create a real dialogue between the orchestra and the piano. Unlike his contemporary Schumann whose concerto is a beautiful piece because though he was originally a pianist (before the disastrous hand exercises) he truly imagined the orchestra's sounds in his most basic conception.

If you use the piano to do this as you play, you make the transition automatically from keyboard technique to the other instruments' general techniques, voice leading, range, etc. Especially if you have in mind the sound of those instruments and are genuinely trying to write for them characteristically. I've never heard hardly any piano music by Stravinsky - just orchestral. My impression is he didn't much like the instrument (?) Did you ever hear anything about that?

But it's interesting to compare Ravel who as you point out was such a master of both piano and orchestra. He of course made perfect orchestations of his own piano pieces - like the Mother Goose Suite. It doesn't seem like an "orchestration" but its natural musical expression. At the same time the piano version sounds good for piano. So you can conclude that certain pieces of music can be basically expressive in both media.

I remember a set of orchestrations done by the excellent American composer Morton Gould. They were released as "Jungle Drums" in a popular LP of the 60s, then re-released recently on CD. They are mainly guitar solos by Lecuona transcribed for orchestra but done incredbily vividly to the extent that the orchestral versions seem almost as "essential" as the original guitar.

What do you think of the piano version of PIctures at an Exhibition? Ravel's orchestration of course is one of the greatest things ever done with the symphony orhcestra, but I have always felt that Mussorgsky who had his problems finishing things didn't really conceive it that well for piano. Pianists like to play it because it is so wide-ranging, but to me it has always sounded a little absurd to hear a pianist banging for all he's worth at those chords at the beginning of the Great Gate of Kiev compared to the awe-inspiring brass ensemble that Ravel scored.

Hello William
I couldn't argree more as far as the two Chopin concerti go. All his piano and orchestral works really ignore the orchestra, so much so that I learnt his Andate Spinato & Grand Polanise as a solo work, as it's now usually performed. Also I'm in full agreement about Pictures, although I do think a lot depends on the performer. I was lucky to hear Kissin do an amazing performance a few years ago. Maybe this has to do with the nature of the piano not really being a sustaining instrument in the same way as brass/woodwind etc. What do you think ? Also did you know the Ravel first, I did so I can't help thinking that's got something to do with it.

I didn't know Stravinsky had an aversion to the piano. Off the top of my head I know his rather dry sonata, his famous Tango, The Five Fingers and another set of studies (op7 myabe ?)

The only music by Morton Gould I know is his Pieces of China (on my music stand now). I think I saw a concerto of his for Tap dancer although I might be wrong ! I'll check out those guitar works you mentioned

Have you heard the Respighi Etude Tableaux orchestrations ? They're excellent, and it surpirses me that Rachmaninov didn't do more orchestrations of his own piano works. Again though, I knew the piano versions first. There's another first class orchestrator; Symphonic Dances spring to mind.
Great thread, really intresting and insightful comments.

Kind regards

Nick

"Can not everything be said on the piano?" Igor Stavinsky

Nothing like an aversion to the piano could be found in Stravinsky. His Sonata in C is a wonderful work. The piano writing in Symphony of Psalms (which contains two pianos) is a revelation of the instrument. I believe his 3rd Symphony has a piano part as well.

He wrote at the piano but does not have a large output of solo work for it (understandable considering the nature of all his orchestral works.) But his affection for the instrument is probably as much as any composer who ever sat at it.

Le Sacre is loaded with pianistic ideas set into the orchestra (polychords and such.) Personally I hear the piano in his works (which have no piano) far more than any other composer. Not as a crutch but as percussive elements worked out on the instrument then wonderfully captured (orchestrated) in other instruments.

Dave Connor

That's intresting Dave. Obviously the Symphony in 3 movements has quite a pronounced piano part also. I understand what you mean about the the polychords especially in the Rite and the pre Neo classical works. This is something you also see in Bartok's piano writing (polychords I mean) but doesn't come through quite as clearly in his orchestral works.

As a question of personal taste though I can't agree with you about the Sonata though. Purely in pianistic terms I'd go for any of the Prokofiev before the Stravinsky, I think Prokofiev 5th is from the same year (pre revsions).

Also perhaps one of the boards braver members would like to orchestrate Ravels Gaspard, one of only 2 piano works (there's probably someone who'll tell me there's loads now I've said that !) I can think of that he never orchestrated.

kind regards

Nick.

Nick,

The Stravinsky Sonata in C I think is wonderful because it's the composer's very unique sensiblity set in the piano. In other words, Stravinsky is so great and unusual that I'm glad we have him on record with that particular instrument. But I wouldn't begin to compare him to the canon of piano literature. Might as well compare him to Chopin in that case. My post was a direct response to his relationship to the piano not to other composers who wrote for it.

Prokofviev's piano output dwarfs Stravinsky's in volume and I would agree in quality as well. I have the scores to almost all his concerto's and admire them very much. A truly unique voice on that instrument.

Dave

Nick,

Yes, I was probably very influenced by first hearing the Ravel orchestration. As I read what you wrote about the pianist I immediately flashed back to once hearing the great concert violinist Oskar Schumsky play a Bach Partita. I was so carried away by his playing that I felt I could hear an entire symphony orchestra coming from his solo violin. I suppose you could say a sufficiently expressive performance can bridge the gap between different media.

Dave,

That is an interesting point about Stravinsky and good to know. Perhaps his mastery of the orchestra overshadowed his piano writing.

Gotta also be another person to say that Prokofiev's Piano Works are the finest around in my opinion. There's more texture and color in a single Prokofiev Piano Sonata than most Piano composer's entire life's piano output, including Chopin in my opinion (who was kind of a one note Johnny when you think about it). The range of color is tops!

[:)]

Evan Evans