ten miniatures for orchestra.
an orchestration of the piano miniatures.
instrumentation: 1111, 111, timpani, drum set, mallet percussion, harp, strings.
When I handed my finished copy of the piano piece to Dr. Bell, he looked through it and said if I orchestrated it, that could be my master's thesis. "You mean that's not cheating?" I exclaimed. I discovered soon enough that it most certainly wasn't. There's no cutting corners when you orchestrate anything. The last orchestration I had looked at before starting to work on this piece was Pierre Boulez's orchestration of his own Notations for piano, in particular the second one. Do look at this score; it's nothing short of amazing. If you've never seen it, it is the epitome of dense. I tried to orchestrate the first movement of this piece in a similar way and it just wasn't right. Dr. Bell reminded me that we had also looked at Luigi Dallapiccola's orchestration of his own Quaderni Musicali di Anna Libera, which in its orchestral form is called simply, Variationi. If you look at this score, you'll see that rarely are there more than 5 voices going at the same time, yet it never sounds empty or sparse, which is what you might suspect. I realized quickly that the Dallapiccola-path was the one to follow on this particular journey in orchestration.
ca. 13'
1999.
Contact me for the score