Musical Transformations:
Orchestration, Arrangement, Transcription and Recomposition
In this course you will learn some key methods of musical transformation. We will begin with orchestration, which transforms music for a single instrument into music that involves a stage full of performers. Orchestration also requires careful decisions about adding new materials, removing old material, adapting, multiplying, and spatialising musical ideas, all of which will be discussed in terms of historical models (including Mozart, Brahms, Wagner, and Adès, for example). The second part of the course revolves around a question: how have composers used old music to make new music? In answering this question we will focus on transformation itself, and we will examine in detail a wide range of recent re-compositions of earlier music (including Halvorsen, Ives, Berio, Schnittke, Nyman and Adams, for example). These will form models either for your own re-compositions, or for an essay about recomposition.
Task 1 - Transformation
Your task is to orchestrate Charles Koechlin's Esquisses no. 10. You should show your command of orchestral textures and write appropriately for all instruments. You will need to use standard orchestral notation. I want to see that you have learnt from exemplary orchestrations in the core repertoire.
The minimum requirement is two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, one harp, and a full complement of strings. Doubling on piccolo and cor anglais is permitted; doubling on E≤ clarinet, bass clarinet, and contrabassoon is not. You may also include an extra pair of horns and one or two trumpets.
Original Score:
Koechlin 24 Esquisses Op. 41 (Book 1) No. 10
Original Transformation:
Transformed by Michael Anastassiou for 2 Piccolo, 2 Flute, 2 Oboe, Cor Anglais, 2 Clarinet in Bb, 2 Bassoon, 4 Horn in F, Harp, Violin 1, Violin 2, Viola, Cello, Double Bass
View my Program Notes + Arrangement Here:
Task 2 - Transformation / Reimagination
Your task is to write a new composition that transforms some preexisting music. It might be a close transformation, or it might follow a tangent and arrive at somewhere distant; it might be a new variation; an extended orchestration, or a recomposition. The choice is yours.
I am looking for you to have found creative ways of transforming the original. Alongside your score, you must submit an explanation—totalling no more than 1000 words—of the work you have undertaken. In short: what is the relationship between the original and your own transformation?