# Why doesn't some music translate well from big to small?



## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

I love modern orchestral music in some cases, yet even composers who I am a fan of their orchestral music, occasionally, when they write chamber or even solo music in the same styles it doesn't click the same way it does when I listen to their orchestral music. So that is my question, why doesn't some kinds of music translate very well when you change the number of instruments involved?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

In many cases the music 'translates' fine. Maybe you don't 'translate' with it. Music from small ensembles often requires a different approach from the listener. Have you checked out Schönberg's "Transfigured Night" in it's various arrangements? That might present clues.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Manok said:


> I love modern orchestral music in some cases, yet even composers who I am a fan of their orchestral music, occasionally, when they write chamber or even solo music in the same styles it doesn't click the same way it does when I listen to their orchestral music. So that is my question, why doesn't some kinds of music translate very well when you change the number of instruments involved?


A dissonance played by different instruments with different timbres is going to be perceived by the ear as less dissonant than the same dissonance played by instruments with the same or similar timbre. Maybe that's why.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

I find the OP confusing. The title of the thread suggests that you mean an individual work being arranged for different ensembles, but your explanation makes it sound like different pieces, where a composer who writes orchestral music you like isn't so successful at chamber music. Which is it?


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## Guest (Mar 3, 2012)

Polednice, I just read your response, which was very much my impression of the OP. I decided for what follows that your option two is the correct one.

Manok, on the other hand, I have a friend who is a very talented new music performer who prefers the chamber and solo stuff over the orchestral stuff.

If you prefer orchestral to chamber in 19th and 18th century music, then there's your answer right there.

If you enjoy 18th and 19th chamber music but not twentieth or twenty-first, it may just be because composers often put their more radical ideas into chamber and solo works, and so those are more difficult at first than works with larger forces. And a big, exciting orchestral sound may be easier to assimilate at first than in music where everything is sparser and more exposed.

Emphasis on "at first."

Anyway, in short, your perception is what's at issue here, not the music, and you may find that your perceptions change over time.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

"Jazz and chamber music are not for everybody." (well, a handful of players, one to a part, no doubling, covers Jazz most of the time as well as classical chamber music.)

It has already been mentioned it is not clear whether you meant a specific down-sized arrangement of a larger orchestral work or other.

There is no telling without interviewing you in detail exactly how much you track the interactivity of all the parts of a piece, large ensemble or small, or whether you are listening to homophonic music or something with more independent activity in it, or the technically truly contrapuntal. Right there could be a matter of how you listen, in general, which is part of your dilemma.

These works were originally chamber music and later orchestrated for symphonic scale forces. Listen to both and then you may be able to better answer your own question.

Aaron Copland:
Appalachian Spring, Ballet suite;for thirteen instruments.








The later orchestral version:









Nothing, in the hands of such an expert orchestrator as was Copland, is 'corrupted' in the orchestral version: indeed, this is one of the scores worth studying if you wanted a model of 'what to do' when taking a chamber piece to a large orchestral arrangement.

Brahms Piano Quartet Op.25; I - Allegro




Brahms / Schoenberg ~ Piano Quartet Op.25; I - Allegro, orchestrated version





Some have thought the Schoenberg orchestration so successful, the Schoenberg / Brahms was given the sobriquet of "Brahms' Fifth Symphony."

If in each instance you prefer the larger or fuller sound, you are (to date, anyway) less interested in the more limited, and no matter how good the larger orchestrations, the clearer 'etched' quality of a more intimate music dialogue.

If you happily listen to both Beethoven or Dvorak symphonies as well as their string quartets, then I imagine you are thinking of another composer less skilled when it comes to writing chamber music. Some composers aren't equally strong in the various genres of classical music, others are: we would need a specific citation of a composer, and the larger ensemble piece and the chamber piece you were thinking of as example.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Manok said:


> I love modern orchestral music in some cases, yet even composers who I am a fan of their orchestral music, occasionally, when they write chamber or even solo music in the same styles it doesn't click the same way it does when I listen to their orchestral music. So that is my question, why doesn't some kinds of music translate very well when you change the number of instruments involved?


Given some examples. Might make matters clearer. (For example, Brahm's chamber music works better for my ears than his orchestral. I enjoy both nonetheless).


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

violadude said:


> A dissonance played by different instruments with different timbres is going to be perceived by the ear as less dissonant than the same dissonance played by instruments with the same or similar timbre. Maybe that's why.


really? I didn't know that (and frankly i can't understand how it's possible).


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Sorry if I was confusing, I just couldn't come up with another way of titling it.... What I meant was, lets take, symphonies vs string quartets, or trios, or concerti vs solo instrument works.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Manok said:


> Sorry if I was confusing, I just couldn't come up with another way of titling it.... What I meant was, lets take, symphonies vs string quartets, or trios, or concerti vs solo instrument works.


It would help a lot if you could give some examples of composers whose orchestral works you enjoy but chamber/solo music you don't.


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## Guest (Mar 4, 2012)

norman bates said:


> really? I didn't know that (and frankly i can't understand how it's possible).


Not only possible, but a veritable commonplace of musical perception.

And not only that, but a dissonance played by twenty people is going to seem less dissonant than one played by only two people, whatever the instrument. Larger forces smooth things out generally.


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## Manok (Aug 29, 2011)

Webern and Penderecki kind of typify this for me, though I do not have specific examples on hand. While I am not a huge fan of Webern in general, I do like one or two of his orchestral works, and can't stand listening to his chamber music. Penderecki at least on my first couple of listens I didn't like his chamber music, but some of it has grown on me, and maybe it's more a question of taste than anything.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Manok said:


> Webern and Penderecki kind of typify this for me, though I do not have specific examples on hand. While I am not a huge fan of Webern in general, I do like one or two of his orchestral works, and can't stand listening to his chamber music. Penderecki at least on my first couple of listens I didn't like his chamber music, but some of it has grown on me, and maybe it's more a question of taste than anything.


Well, at least with Webern, his orchestral pieces have color to fall back on, in general. With his ultra-serial technique he was able to create beautiful and unique sound worlds with an orchestra. Not that he couldn't with a string quartet or something as well. But with a smaller ensemble and a less colorful palette to work with the qualities of his actual serial technique is very much more in the forefront, if that makes sense.


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