Got an arrangement back from a contest.
J R Laredo
of "Dubinushka," and decided to send it in to a contest. Came back with two
comments: 1) It is a very good transcription of the famous composition, and
very good exercise in orchestration; 2) Rather than submitting a
transcription, do your own arrangement.
So, there you go.
LJS
wrote:
This is not a new view on literature. This same concept was prevalent
back in the 60s. I am sure there were more, but I know of no other
symphonic band other than ours that never, yes never, played an
arrangement in band. We either played a literal transcription or
pieces written originally for band. I don't know of any other college
band that can say that. If there are any one else that can say that, I
would love to hear from them.
Our director did not believe in "arrangements" and he did believe in
the worth of playing real literature. He also did not believe in
playing a portion of a piece. We either played the entire selection or
we did not play it. I don't even talk about what pieces we played
because people just don't believe that it could possibly be true. The
main problem was finding good transcriptions and finding complete
pieces of symphonies. During my stay there, I did the middle two
movements of the Brahms Symp #1 and a couple of pieces in the Hary
Janos Suite by Kodaly.
This filtered down to the ensemble literature as well. I can also say
that in the 6 years I was there, we did not repeat a piece on any of
the concerts in any other year. As I look back on this, it was very
important as we were forming our opinions of what was and was not
"good music". As I listen to some of the "arrangements" of standard
literature and (unfortunately) most of the band literature I have
heard since, I am very thankful that B.W. stuck to his guns in
selecting our literature.
Good for you for doing a transcription rather than an arrangement. I
don't know if the fine print of the contest favored arrangements for a
specific level, but it is good to hear of your dedication to the real
stuff. Real transcriptions may not be very profitable, but if you had
did this back then, I am confident that B.W. would have somehow found
you and you would have had at least one rental of your work.
LJS
J R Laredo
"LJS" <ljsc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:a0897bf1-dbfc-47fa...@s31g2000yqs.googlegroups.com...
LJS
Thanks for the kind words. I think what the judge was referring to is that
Dubinushka was a pre-existing tune that Rimsky-Korsakov had arranged for
orchestra and that I should have gone with the pre-existing tune and made my
own take on it. Which has always been difficult for me: once I hear a
version which I really like it is really hard for me to get it out of my
head. Anyway, thanks, again, and Merry Christmas if you do that sort of
thing.
In case anyone is curious, I have it on the Sibelius site.
http://www.sibeliusmusic.com/index.php?sm=home.score&scoreID=145999