Arranging String Quartet

[raweber]

Can anyone point me to a decent resource for arranging for contemporary string quartet? I have a piece that would be perfect with piano and SQ. I've done a little googling, but haven't come up with anything instructional, yet.

[JumpingJackFlash]

Can anyone point me to a decent resource for arranging for contemporary string quartet? I have a piece that would be perfect with piano and SQ. I've done a little googling, but haven't come up with anything instructional, yet.

This is usually called a piano quintet. (Meaning string quartet plus piano, not 5 pianos!).

I don't know of any good sites, but you should be aware of the basics, like the range of the instruments:

Violin: G2-E6
Viola: C2-A5
Cello: C1-G4
Where C3 is 'middle C'.

You should be aware of the sonorities of the strings; for example, the highest string of the violin can cut through a lot more than the other strings. Also note, an open string sounds more fuller than a stopped string. Also don't have too big leaps.

Read up on string technique and orchestration, and if you need any specific help, ask here!

[tee boy]

My advice would be to look at some scores. Many of the major composers wrote for chamber.

But basically, you can just take your piano music and seperate it into four parts. Obviously you would need to account for the sustain of the pedal, etc.

If you want to make it a little more complicated, you could have the piano accompanied by the strings (with the strings just playing basic homophonic accompaniment and the piano presenting the melodic material, main figuration, etc).

TB

[JumpingJackFlash]

But basically, you can just take your piano music and seperate it into four parts.

I would be very careful about doing this. Unless your original piano part is purely chordal (which is rather rare), it probably won't work very well. - Things for the piano often are very difficult to play on the violin, and vice versa.

Take an alberti bass, or other sequence of broken chords for example. - Great on the piano, but wouldn't work at all for a string quartet.

The art of any orchestration is to write idiomatically for the various instruments. (Unless you make a deliberate choice to do otherwise). Different instruments just work in different ways, and you often can't simply give one part to another instrument and expect them to play it the same way.

Another thing: when writing for amateur strings, do not write too high. - They will only moan at you because the gaps between the notes get smaller the higher you go. As a general rule, avoid going higher than about seventh position (up to A5) for a violin, and less than that for the others. (Obviously professional players can go higher than this though).

[raweber]

Thanks for all the input so far. The violins will probably be a professional (close friend), but I don't know a violist or cellist, so those will probably be MIDI tracks.

Guess I'm looking for examples of voicing and harmonizing that work well for the PianoQ.

Thanks, Rob

[VicDiesel]

This is usually called a piano quintet. (Meaning string quartet plus piano, not 5 pianos!).

Hee.

The following was posted ages ago on usenet. (Does anyone here actually use usenet? I still think it's a fantastic medium.)

Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Duet for Three (Fiction)
Message-ID: <1991Apr20.231215.7147@morrow.stanford.edu>
Date: 20 Apr 91 23:12:15 GMT

DUET FOR THREE by John Klemm

It was intermission at an all-Brahms concert, part of the symphony's regular
subscription series. In a quiet part of the lobby, a yuppie-aged couple sat
down with their coffee at the table next to mine, and their conversation soon
became much more interesting to me than the program notes for the second half.
"I wish we heard more Brahms at these concerts," he said, shifting about in
the metal chair.
"We've heard all the symphonies now," she returned. "Even that 5th Symphony."
"He only wrote 4."
"I know, but-"
"You're confused because his First was supposed to be Beethoven's Tenth."
"No, well, maybe, but somebody said that piece we heard that Schoenberg
arranged could have been Brahms's Fifth Symphony," she said. "I guess maybe
it was Schoenberg who said it."
"I remember the piece; I did like it. What was the original Brahms piece?"
"A piano quartet."
"Maybe we should try to find that at Tower. I'd like to know how 4 pianos
sound."
"No, that's not- oh, well, actually you do know. We have that lovely record
of the Bach Concerto for 4 keyboards after Vivaldi."
"Of course he was after Vivaldi. You don't have to talk to me like I'm an
idiot." His chastisement wasn't particularly serious.
"No, I mean, it's the concerto Bach wrote for 4 pianos based on one Vivaldi
wrote for 4 violins."
"Pianos?" He was pretty sure he knew better on this one.
"No, not pianos. Harpsichords I guess. That German politician plays it on
piano on our record. With other people too."
"I never thought that was as exciting as it should be. It always sounded
like about one-and-a-half pianos to me instead of 4."
She took a slow, thoughtful sip of coffee, looked up at him, took a quick but
deep breath and went on. "But actually, the Brahms Piano Quartet isn't for
four pianos. It's for a piano with some string players."
"Really?" He took a sip too. She took that as a good sign and continued.
"Yes, I think it's for a piano, and a violin, and a viola and cello."
"Uh huh. Well, what's a piano duet for then?"
"What?" She didn't understand his question.
"Who plays in a piano duet? How many string players?"
"A piano duet?" She threw a curve. "Oh, like those Brahms Haydn variations?"
"What?" Now he was confused.
"The variations Brahms wrote on a theme by Haydn."
"No, no. That's not a duet. There's dozens of string players in that."
"Not the original. He wrote it first for two pianos."
"Oh, okay. You were trying to confuse me."
"Well, maybe," she said with a smile. He smiled back, and she drank some
more coffee. He suddenly frowned.
"So- so what about the piano duet?"
"OK," she said, "it's for two pianos."
"And a piano solo?"
"One piano, of course."
"A piano trio?"
"A piano and two string players, I think," she answered without hesitation.
"So why is that?"
"I don't know. It's just the way it is. Who'd want to hear 3 or 4 pianos?"
"I guess Bach did," he said.
"Maybe. But then, he didn't even bother to write original music for them!"
They thought about that for a moment as they toyed with their coffees.
"So, getting back to Brahms," he said.
"Yes," she replied, "I guess we should be."
"We have a couple more minutes. They haven't rung the chimes yet. So
Brahms wrote a piano sonata, right?"
"I think so," she replied cautiously.
"Those guys all did. So it's for one piano, right?"
"Yes."
"And he wrote a violin sonata, right?"
"Yes, but it's for-"
"A violin and a piano, I know. Does that make sense to you?" he asked.
"He also wrote a clarinet sonata."
"For clarinet and piano?"
She tossed in, "Or viola and piano."
"A clarinet sonata for viola and piano. Ok, sure. I don't think I want to
hear any of them. So a piano sonata is for one instrument, but a violin sonata
is for two. Does that make any sense?"
"Well, how about the Bach violin sonatas?"
"What about them? Do I want to hear them? Violin and piano- er, harpsichord."
"Some of them," she agreed. "But some of them are just for violin alone."
"How do you know which are which?"
"I guess you watch how many people come out on stage."
"And see what they're carrying," he added.
"You know, there are some Bach TRIO sonatas."
"Hmmm, and how many people play in them?"
"Either 4 or 1."
He snorted. "4 or 1. But not 3?"
"No, 4 if it's for more than one instrument, like two violins, and a cello
and a harpsichord. One if it's just for the organ."
"So..." he decided not to pursue that; perhaps he didn't want to know anymore
than he already did about organ music. "So what made Brahms do his quartet for
piano and violin and whatever?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"The Brahms quartet is for those instruments, right?"
She couldn't tell what his next target was, but she headed him off. "The
Brahms PIANO quartet is."
"Right. That's what I meant."
"Well, ok, but you just said 'Brahms Quartet'. A Brahms Quartet would be
just for string instruments. That's what people usually mean."
"What?"
"Well, when you talk about a Brahms Quartet, or a Beethoven Quartet, or a
Borodin Quartet, that means a string quartet."
"When _I_ do?"
"Well, maybe when you do in the future," she laughed.
"Of course," he said thoughtfully, "pianos are string instruments."
"Forget that! You're not going anywhere with that!"
"So, so what about- what about a BRASS quartet?"
"What about it?"
"What does that have in it?" he asked.
"I'm not sure that's a normal group. It's usually a brass quintet."
"And what does that have in it?"
"Um, a trumpet- two trumpets, a horn player, a trombone, two- no, one
trombone and a tuba."
"And a woodwind quartet?"
"Same thing -- woodwinds don't come in quartets. They come in quintets.
Let's see, that has a flute, and an oboe, a clarinet, a bassoon and a horn."
"Oh, another horn? Wasn't that in the brass quintet a second ago?" He
beamed in triumph, though it wasn't clear what he had won.
"Hmmmmm." She paused to finish her coffee.
He leapt ahead. "And what about the Brahms clarinet quintet?"
"A clarinet plus a string quartet. You don't really want to hear 5 clarinets,
do you?"
While he thought about that, the chimes signalling the end of the
intermission rang. She started to get up.
"Speaking of Brahms, are you ready now?" she said.
"So what about harps? Didn't Beethoven write a harp quartet? How many harps?"
"Oh no," she moaned as they moved away. "And that one doesn't even have a
harp in it. I think it's one of his Rasumovsky Quartets."
"Well, then how many Rasumovskys?" he joked.
"Three," she quickly replied, to his surprise.
"Hmmmmmmm." I couldn't tell if he got that one or not.

John Klemm, Stanford University

[Deric]

Hi,

You might find some useful tip and pointers in these TUTORIALS

[Km7]

Principles of Orchestration by Rimsky-Korsakov is really one of the best books on orchestration.

[raweber]

Thanks, Derek. That looks like a great resource.

Oh, and VicDiesel, everyone knows that a piano trio is piano, upright bass and trap set...

[VicDiesel]

Oh, and VicDiesel, everyone knows that a piano trio is piano, upright bass and trap set...

Excellent!

Victor.

[tee boy]

But basically, you can just take your piano music and seperate it into four parts.

I would be very careful about doing this. Unless your original piano part is purely chordal (which is rather rare), it probably won't work very well. - Things for the piano often are very difficult to play on the violin, and vice versa.

Take an alberti bass, or other sequence of broken chords for example. - Great on the piano, but wouldn't work at all for a string quartet.

The art of any orchestration is to write idiomatically for the various instruments. (Unless you make a deliberate choice to do otherwise). Different instruments just work in different ways, and you often can't simply give one part to another instrument and expect them to play it the same way.

Another thing: when writing for amateur strings, do not write too high. - They will only moan at you because the gaps between the notes get smaller the higher you go. As a general rule, avoid going higher than about seventh position (up to A5) for a violin, and less than that for the others. (Obviously professional players can go higher than this though).

Absolutely.

But the string section can be quite versatile. You can give it arpeggios and broken accompaniments.

Mozart would often give an Alberti style accompaniment to the strings in his symphonies, dont forget. He would have the the cello and bass playing pizzicato, with the violas playing the up notes. Have alook at the symphony No40, first movement.

TB

[VicDiesel]

Mozart would often give an Alberti style accompaniment to the strings in his symphonies, dont forget.

You could also say that Mozart was a mediocre arranger, who didn't know how to write idiomatically for strings. He just transcribed his keyboard parts.

Victor.

(can you tell I don't like Mozart?)

[tee boy]

I must admit, I can take it or leave it. Mozart is one of those composer's whose sound is distinctive, you always know its them. I guess that leads to such composers being like Marmite - people either love or hate them.

I know that Mozart did make some innovations in orchestration, so I wouldnt suggest that his arranging was weak. However, I am a Beethoven man so I dont tend to be a little bias like yourself!

TB

[Toxikator]

I think Mozart is one of those people who everyone knows their name so they get WAY more credit than deserved, like Elvis or the Beatles. It's not that he's BAD, it's just that he's not as good as he ought to be for the amount of praise he gets.

[JumpingJackFlash]

Yes, there is certainly an element of truth in both of the previous posts.

I mean, take Mozart's Concertos as just one example; - you can take the ending few bars of any section from any Mozart concerto, and, with suitable transpositions, shove them in any other Mozart concerto, and it would work fine, usually with no noticeable difference or break.

But, that doesn't mean he's bad of course, he could just be playing to his strengths. - I'd rather have lots of a good thing than a mixed bag of things that didn't work well.