Scaling up — orchestral arrangements of guitar works

Composers sometimes arrange their original works for smaller forces for orchestra: one thinks in particular of Ravel’s consummate orchestral versions of his piano pieces. The journey from guitar original to orchestral setting is much less commonly travelled. Here are a handful of pieces which acquire intriguing new life when recast in this way. Hearing these versions gives us a window onto their composers’ imaginations, maybe suggesting the way in which they heard the pieces as they were writing them. I find these interpretations inspire me in turn to explore expression, dynamics and colour when playing the originals.

Manuel de Falla — Homenaje

The Homenaje appeared in a special edition of the Parisian journal La Revue Musicale published in 1920 with the title Le Tombeau de Debussy, as a tribute to the memory of the great French composer who had died two years previously. In addition to the Homenaje the publication included pieces by Ravel, Stravinsky, Dukas, Satie, Bartok and others. Falla’s piece stands out as the first original guitar work written by a major non-guitarist composer: it is of course one of the masterpieces of the repertoire, extraordinarily idiomatic and suggesting a depth of expression and sense of scale that belies its three-and-a-half minutes duration and its inward, intimate grief.

The orchestral version dates from much later — Falla created this as the second movement of a four-movement suite Homenajes in 1939, in self-imposed exile in Argentina following Franco’s victory in the Spanish Civil War. The suite pays homage to influences and mentors, with an orchestration of a memorial to Paul Dukas, a Fanfare written in honour of conductor E. F. Arbós’ seventieth birthday, and a newly-composed tribute to his teacher and pioneer of Spanish music, Felipe Pedrell. Leanny Munoz eloquently places the work as a whole in the context of Falla’s deep sense of an inclusive Spanish identity at odds with the narrow Castilian nationalism that the Franco regime was promulgating.

Falla’s orchestration of Homenaje is immediately striking. The simple texture of the original is fleshed out with shuddering ponticello in the lower strings, solemn strokes on the timpani, and flashes of colour from muted horn, harp and later celesta. There’s no attempt here to make the orchestra sound like a guitar: the darkness of the orchestral palette is entirely idiomatic.

Recordings of the suite are readily accessible (for example on Spotify, YouTube) — as with each of the works here I strongly recommend listening to these!

Pierre-Octave Ferroud — Spiritual

Pierre-Octave Ferroud (1900–1936) left a small but but highly characteristic body of works at his untimely death. He was a lively presence on the contemporary music scene in Paris, and was present at Segovia’s debut recital there in 1924 (in which, incidentally, he programmed the Falla Homenaje). Impressed by this, he wrote a glowing review, and two years later completed Spiritual, a short work clearly channelling the Stravinsky of Ragtime and L’histoire du Soldat. Unsurprisingly, given its idiom, Segovia declined to play the piece, and it remained unknown in its original form until two manuscript copies came to light around the turn of the 21st century (the piece and its genesis, as well as its further life, are succinctly described in Allan Jones 2001 article for Classical Guitar).

The original is — I suspect — unique in the repertoire for its style, and is intriguingly suggestive of what the Stravinsky of the 1920s might have written, has Segovia been more amenable to a collaboration:

Ferroud must have thought highly of this little piece, and rescued it by recasting it as the third movement of the Sérénade for piano duet (4 hands) in 1927. At the suggestion of Koussevitsky he then orchestrated all three movements of this work: the score of this version was published in 1928.

Maybe by virtue of its arrival in this form via an expansion for piano duet, the orchestral version is vibrant and explosive. As in the Falla, there’s no sense that this music started life in the pared-down circumstance of a guitar solo:

Recordings of the original version of Spiritual are still rare (I do hope this changes, this little piece deserves to be widely heard): here’s Roberto Moronn Pérez (Spotify, YouTube). And the orchestral version (Spotify, YouTube).

Joan Manén — Fantasia-Sonata Op. A-22/Divertimento Op. A-32

Manén’s Fantasia-Sonata was completed in its original form in 1929, and recast by its composer for orchestra as the Divertimento Op. A-32, in which form it was premiered in 1936. A further complication arises in the shape of Segovia’s editing of the score: the 1930 published edition of the guitar work differs from Manén’s draft, now edited by Angelo Gilardino and published in the Segovia Archive edition in 2011.

The Divertimento is clearly based on the composer’s draft rather than Segovia’s edition, but takes full advantage of the orchestral forces it uses to add considerable texture and detail — many passages in the guitar version in which the musical argument is sustained in a single line and supporting chords are recast with motivic echoes of the work’s rhythms and melodies filling out the accompaniment.

Manén’s debt to late romantic music, and to Wagner in particular, comes across even more strongly in the Divertimento than in the original, particularly in the Adagio cantabile section. In either form it’s a remarkable work. The fact that it was performed, published and recorded by its dedicatee meant that it never disappeared from the guitar repertoire in the way that the Ferroud Spiritual or the Martin Quatre Pièces Brèves did. Nevertheless it seems only recently to have been rediscovered by players, and there are now many recordings. The Divertimento can be heard on SoundCloud here.

Frank Martin — Quatre Pièces Brèves/Guitare

Another piece written for Segovia, and rejected — the story of the composition of Quatre Pièces Brèves in 1930, and of Segovia’s crossing the road to avoid the composer’s greeting, are now well known. Once again, the original work went underground, with a first performance in 1947 by the Austrian guitarist Hermann Leeb. Since its publication in an edition by Leeb and Karl Scheit, and it’s promotion in the 1960s by Julian Bream and others, the piece is now well established in the repertoire. And also, as Ferroud did with Spiritual, Martin was sufficiently attached to the material to make both a piano version of the piece (Guitare, premiered by the composer in 1933) and an orchestral version (also called Guitare, in 1934).

The orchestral version is — to my ears — extraordinarily delicate. There’s a chamber music sensibility to the whole, in particular to the two middle movements, which adapt the original more or less literally. The musical text in Prélude and concluding Comme une gigue is minimally but delicately enhanced.

It was hearing about this version of the work that piqued my interest in the subject of guitar-to-orchestra arrangements many years ago. I’m glad that this version is now recorded — it was worth the wait.

William Walton — Five Bagatelles/Varii Capricci

Another mainstay of the solo guitar repertoire, Walton’s Five Bagatelles (written in 1974 for Julian Bream, but dedicated to Malcolm Arnold as a 50th birthday tribute) are well represented in recordings and recital programmes. I’ve always been struck at the way these pieces, whether the faster odd-numbered bagatelles with their verve and energy or the more intimate and reflective second and fourth movements, manage to be so completely characteristic of Walton’s style: there’s no sense of compromise in either.

Given this, it’s not surprising that very little seems to be added — or needed to be added — to the first four of the orchestral Varii Capricci (the last one extends the original material somewhat). While appreciating the consummate skill of the colourful orchestration (there are some gorgeous delicate moments as well as lots of noisy energy), my take on these is that something seems to be lost in translation in this version. Maybe it’s just me — judge for yourselves here.

Others?

Apart from Joaquin Rodrigo’s 1930 arrangement of his Zarabanda Lejana (composed in 1926), these are the only five works I know that have been adapted by their composers for orchestra. Perhaps you know more? If so, please let me know! I hope hearing these versions will stimulate your imagination, and will take you back to the original versions with inspiration and new ideas.

Postscript

This post was edited 4 August 2019 to add a short section on the Manén Divetimento. Feedback from several people has also pointed out the following:

• William Walton — the song cycle with guitar Anon in Love was arranged by Walton for voice and orchestra
• Federico Moreno Torroba — the Sonatina exists in an expanded version for guitar and string orchestra
• Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco — Capriccio Diabolico Op. 85 also exists in a version for guitar and orchestra
• Toru Takemitsu — Toward the Sea for alto flute and guitar was reworked as Toward the Sea II, in which the guitar part is arranged for harp and strings
• Roland Dyens — Tango en Skai, version for guitar and string orchestra
• Poul Ruders — Guitar Concerto №2 became his Piano Concerto №3

Many thanks to Daniel Corr, Jens Overbye, Jelle Beckers, David Starobin, Gerhard Penn, Mark Delpriora, Gerard Cousins for feedback and for adding to the list above