# Appropriate to study piano arrangement of non-piano pieces?



## NewHorizon

So my child is a piano student - early intermediate level - and has been assigned a piece arranged for piano, but not originally written for piano.

IMHO, the piano arrangement was well done.

But still, I can't help but wonder how appropriate is it for a student (of any instrument, really) to be made to work on pieces not originally intended for their instrument....?


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## NewHorizon

For a little background, let me add my own experience...

As a boy, I chanced upon Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in a piano book and enjoyed making my meager attempts at playing it. Only later I discovered that it's an orchestral piece. I immediately lost interest in the piano arrangement as I didn't care to spend my time on what seemed to me to be a knock-off.

Fast-forward a few decades and now my daughter is assigned a piano piece which I've discovered (thanks to *hreichgott* in another thread) was not originally written for the piano. So maybe you can see how I feel a little antsy about this...


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## Volve

Why wouldn't it be appropriate? I don't see how this would take away anything from your child's musical development. Rather, I can only see it adding to it. Was it inappropriate for Liszt to transcribe all that wonderful music into the piano? Apply the same logic and don't worry about it, as long as they don't try to play something that is far out of their technical reach, I can't see no harm being done. 
Just out of curiosity though, what's the piece?


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## NewHorizon

Volve said:


> Just out of curiosity though, what's the piece?


Last movement, Rondo, of Mozart's Divertimento for Strings and two French Horns in D major (K 334). 
My thanks to *hreichgott* for finding it for me.

I'm no expert (obviously), but there are some voicings in this piece which, seems to me, one wouldn't normally compose for the piano. There's a left hand C-E-G-C arpeggio, for example, where the low C is indicated twice on the same beat - once as an eighth note, and once as a dotted half. And you have no choice but to play it only one way or the other - not both. (6/8 time signature. Piano arrangement is in C major.) Is that unusual for piano, or am I just uneducated?



Volve said:


> Was it inappropriate for Liszt to transcribe all that wonderful music into the piano?


I guess I get the Liszt comparison. But I'm recalling as a boy encountering Schubert's Unfinished Symphony in a piano book. I hadn't yet ever heard it, but its power caught my interest and I made many terrible attempts at playing it. Later I discovered that it's an orchestral piece. I immediately lost interest because I didn't want to put time and effort into what seemed to me to be a "knock-off" version for the piano.

And indeed now as an adult, I gather no professional piano player would ever perform that piece.

Fast-forward a few decades and my kid gets this piano arrangement of a strings & horns piece. You see where I'm coming from...


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## worov

I am in principle against arrangements of classical music (popular music, I don't mind though). One should play what one loves as long as it is the original piece. Even though I love Debussy's Prelude à l'après-midi d'un faune, I would never play an arrangement of it. As far as I know neither Debussy ever wrote a piano version of the piece, so chances are that I will end up with some facilitated non-idiomatic and awful version of pieces that wound wonderful in their intended set-up, but sound terrible in the piano. Just get any beginner's collection of pieces and sight-read through the versions for Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", for instance and you'll see what I mean.



> Was it inappropriate for Liszt to transcribe all that wonderful music into the piano?


In the past when CDs were not available the only way to hear a Beethoven symphony in the home was through transcriptions or four-hand arrangements. Now we have thousands of CDs and LPs recordings of the Beethoven symphonies by wonderful conductors and large orchestras. I prefer to hear these. If I want to play some Beethoven, I'll play his piano pieces. I will be able to play them as he intended them to be. Therefore these will be much more rewarding to play (and easier than Liszt, hehe).

Finally, the piano repertoire is huge. There must be some 784456412354895 pieces composed in the world. I have more than enough material to play for the rest of my life. There is no need of arrangements.


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## Taggart

Hmm. OK if you are able to play the original. There is nothing wrong with a simplified version for a beginner (or intermediate player). The same thing applies to transcriptions. You should be able to hear a version on You Tube and work out what you should be doing and it also broadens your musical background by not restricting you to strictly beginner pieces.


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## hreichgott

I don't see the harm. I play all sorts of arrangements and transcriptions and improvisations on non-piano music for my work as a church musician and dance accompanist. I encourage my piano students to make their own arrangements of pop songs they like. Of course there are good and bad transcriptions out there.

Students of many instruments learn music written for other instruments. Especially if they play an instrument with a limited solo repertoire. Pianists are lucky to have such a large rep available, but on the other hand pianists are often called on to stand in for other instruments if not for a full orchestra.

If this is about that Mozart Rondo, the only real issue is that the arrangement makes it look like the theme is the whole piece -- it even looks like a rondo since it has that secondary idea that comes in and alternates with the main idea. So it's important for students to be informed that it's an excerpt and if possible to hear the whole piece. Same with the Theme from Symphony no. 3 by Beethoven that appears earlier in the Suzuki books: the Suzuki books assume that the teacher knows the 3rd Symphony and can have the student listen to the last movement, a much longer theme and variations starring that very theme.


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## Ravndal

No problem. I do it all the time as well.


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## PetrB

There is plenty of unabridged repertoire at every level that _there is no real need for simplified arrangements_ for either instructor or student. Ergo: I agin simplified versions of anything.

_However_ -- simplified pieces are assigned for student pleasure (perhaps as well assigned as an incentive), and some are assigned so parents paying for the lessons hear something recognizable to them and are then assured that John / Jane is actually showing some result. They are also generally assigned so the student has something "to play for grandma," so to speak.

There is absolutely no necessity for the simplified pieces, other than, for example, people wanting to play "the melodies of Chopin" long before they have the chops for Chopin unabridged (there is, truly, no simple Chopin 

I avoided them when I was teaching (and replicating my childhood / beginner lessons, stayed with the real deal when it came to pieces assigned, original versions only.) My clientele were all returning adults, no youngsters to please, no parents needing a demonstration that their child could play a recognizable ditty, etc. This is not always the case 

People of a certain disposition will want them, play them, and feel satisfied: others, more in line with my taste / thinking, find all abridged arrangements so much less than. I steer clear of them, as player and teacher.

HReichgott makes a salient point: when playing piano becomes your job, as accompanist the pianist must play all sorts of orchestral reductions and other arrangements: many of those are not at all "pianistic." Playing those takes a certain skill level, both technical and theoretic, which is not normally part of any earlier piano training... and for most students, that set of problems will likely never arrive.

If the student, or other social pressure demand (family, public display) then those simplified versions may have a place. At times, it is easier to cave in to accommodate all concerned vs. educating parents and audience that playing original pieces, and the technical challenge those give, is almost always the more / most effective way to proceed.


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## tdc

Some good points PetrB, but of course (as you know) you are only speaking of one type of arrangement in your post and obviously not all piano arrangements are merely simplified reductions of pieces, for example Busoni's arrangement of Bach's Chaconne.


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## maestro57

To the OP: It is very appropriate to play pieces that weren't originally written for the piano. Otherwise, you're rejecting like half of Liszt's works, for example. Further, you have composers like Mozart and Beethoven, to name a couple of bigwigs, that felt it was "appropriate" to transcribe some of their own (orchestral) works for the piano. I don't think any of these composers would react well if you told them it was "inappropriate".

Music is music.


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## PetrB

maestro57 said:


> To the OP: It is very appropriate to play pieces that weren't originally written for the piano. Otherwise, you're rejecting like half of Liszt's works, for example. Further, you have composers like Mozart and Beethoven, to name a couple of bigwigs, that felt it was "appropriate" to transcribe some of their own (orchestral) works for the piano. I don't think any of these composers would react well if you told them it was "inappropriate".
> 
> Music is music.


You cited only composers whose ability to write both brilliantly and idiomatically for the piano is near legendary -- and they knew 'how to compose' in general. Transcriptions depend upon the technical knowledge of music and the instrument for which they are transcribed. There are hosts of badly transcribed / simplified pieces for piano. Editing, or choosing what is a well-written piece from the pianistic / pedagogic angle is the key here.

A Liszt parody on themes from an opera, or his transcriptions of the Beethoven symphonies for home play are leagues above so many of those badly written arrangements, as are some arrangements / transcriptions from others. The Debussy two-piano arrangements of his own work are beautifully done, but this was a master composer and a virtuoso pianist making them 

Music is music, and piano music, original or transcriptions, is also music -- some is really not at all well done, some is superb.


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## AmateurComposer

I see no problem in transcribing classical music across performance media. Of course the quality of the transcription depends on the ability of the transcriber, and, therefore, it is desirable that the transcriber is named in the transcribed piece (sometimes this is done, sometimes not).

It would also be helpful if the original instrument or ensemble is mentioned in the transcription. I never saw that done. Maybe it had been done in cases which I did not see.


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## Jonathan Wrachford

Um...well... I personally don't enjoy playing too much transcribed music for the piano that was originally written for an orchestra, but, it's your choice. Nobody can necessarily say it's "inappropriate" to play transcribed music. If you don't have a problem with it, then go ahead. I can say that I've heard a few real nice transcriptions for the piano, even though it really isn't my preferred type of music.


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## Matsps

> for example, where the low C is indicated twice on the same beat - once as an eighth note, and once as a dotted half. And you have no choice but to play it only one way or the other - not both. (6/8 time signature. Piano arrangement is in C major.) Is that unusual for piano, or am I just uneducated?


Getting notes shown as differing values happens all the time in piano music. It's can be very helpful! For the more advanced player, it helps you to pick out potential melodies in parts a lot more quickly and allows you to make better decisions as to how to play the piece. Any time signature goes (in fact, 6/8 is not all that rare) and the key does not matter at all.



> And indeed now as an adult, I gather no professional piano player would ever perform that piece.


hmm well I do the odd bit of professional playing here and there and yet I still felt it was appropriate to ask for piano versions of Holst's Planets Suite (http://www.talkclassical.com/30201-holst-planets.html) and if they were good, I would certainly consider playing them in an appropriate setting. I have also on numerous occasions played piano arrangements, in performances, of pop and jazz pieces, some of which do not include a piano (or even a single acoustic instrument!) in the original piece. Also, personally, I actually think some of the nicest pieces in the piano repertoire were not written originally for solo piano. e.g. 




The piano is an extremely versatile instrument, on which you can play piano pieces and also arrangements for everything from a rock band to a full orchestra. Music has no rules and the piano has few limits, and one of those limits is definitely not that only music written for piano should be played on it.


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