# Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 Question



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

I'd like to know if someone competent has reorchestrated this concerto
I like the piece, but the orchestration is awful!


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Mikhail Pletnev did a work arranger on the Danill Trifonov recording try that.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Thank you for the reccommendation.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

ORigel said:


> I'd like to know if someone competent has reorchestrated this concerto
> I like the piece, but the orchestration is awful!


It has a lovely bassoon solo in the slow mvt....so it can't be all that bad!! 
So does the 1st concerto - wonderful bassoon part in slow mvt....


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Chopin Piano Concerto No. 2 ...*



ORigel said:


> ...
> I like the piece, but the orchestration is awful!


Hmm .... I've listened to this piece for years and never noticed the awful orchestration. Maybe I should wash out my ears?

In the meantime, I'm admiring the introduction to the piece via this video:


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

Agreed. The idea that the orchestration in Chopin's concertos is supposedly poor keeps cropping up, but I've never seen a convincing argument to support it.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

It once was traditional to call the orchestration weak and older recordings tended to cut the orchestral introduction. But this case has been grossly overstated. The orchestration is never less than competent. The fact is that Chopin wrote them for piano not orchestra.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

There are problems, but eliminating them by reorchestration would remove that Chopin sound. The most glaring issue is having that one trombone part. Why? It's always doubling something: 1st or 2nd bassoon or the cellos. Trombones are effective in threes, but in this concerto it sounds out of place. One performance I played some time ago the conductor rather audaciously left it out. I really believe that Chopin added it only because some orchestra he was with had only one bassoon, or maybe none and a weak cello section. The trombone could at least fill in the blanks. Then, look at the very last chord. Almost every instrument in on the tonic, F. Almost a unison. You do get the fifth, C, in trumpet 1. Where's the third? Odd.

Balakirev loved the Chopin concertos and he at least made a new scoring for the first concerto. Someone recorded it but I can't recall who it was. I wish Mily had taken the time to work on no. 2. Anyway though, it's a beautiful romantic concerto and lovely just the way it is.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

No changes in orchestration, but you wouldn't believe it the way Zimerman really brings the music to life:


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## Geoff48 (Aug 15, 2020)

mbhaub said:


> There are problems, but eliminating them by reorchestration would remove that Chopin sound. The most glaring issue is having that one trombone part. Why? It's always doubling something: 1st or 2nd bassoon or the cellos. Trombones are effective in threes, but in this concerto it sounds out of place. One performance I played some time ago the conductor rather audaciously left it out. I really believe that Chopin added it only because some orchestra he was with had only one bassoon, or maybe none and a weak cello section. The trombone could at least fill in the blanks. Then, look at the very last chord. Almost every instrument in on the tonic, F. Almost a unison. You do get the fifth, C, in trumpet 1. Where's the third? Odd.
> 
> Balakirev loved the Chopin concertos and he at least made a new scoring for the first concerto. Someone recorded it but I can't recall who it was. I wish Mily had taken the time to work on no. 2. Anyway though, it's a beautiful romantic concerto and lovely just the way it is.


Friedrich gulda recorded it in the fifties for Decca with Sir Adrian Boult. It was then reissued on Ace of Clubs and Membran (documents) have included in their 10 cd Boult set. Whilst re -orchestration can be deprecated in principle it cannot be denied that in this case it is a vast improvement


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Concerto_No._2_(Chopin)#Orchestration
"Chopin's fellow composers and Prof. Elsner's former students, Ignacy Feliks Dobrzyński (1807-1867) and Tomasz Nidecki (1807-1852), are believed to have helped him orchestrate his piano concertos. This gave an excuse for other musicians to make slight alterations in the score. Alfred Cortot created his own orchestration of the F minor concerto and recorded it with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under John Barbirolli in 1935. Ingolf Wunder recorded Alfred Cortot's orchestration with minor changes done by himself in 2015. More recently (in 2017), Mikhail Pletnev recorded his arrangements of both of Chopin's piano concertos, conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with pianist Daniil Trifonov."


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