Piano reductions

[solfegehero]

Hi everybody!

As an openminded conservatory student I've played all kinds of accompanist jobs simultaneous with my solo repetoire. Recently a marimba student asked me if I wanted to play Paul Crestons Concertino for Marimba with him. I said sure without hesitation.

Then I got the sheets...
It's horrendous to play on the piano to say the least. If I were to play the piece at the correct tempo and as written it would be insanely difficult.
What I don't understand is why publishers/composers make these unplayable piano versions. Sure it's interesting and sometimes essential to see the bigger picture with works like this but what does it matter when it can't be played?
In all of the live versions of this piece played by marimba and piano, the accompanist doesn't even bother with the first two pages?!
I am currently working on peeling all the "unnecessary" stuff of this otherwise excellent piece.

What are your guys' experiences and thoughts on piano reductions?

[49410enrique]

i accompany quite a bit, i agree the piano parts for orchestra reduction are garbage (almost all of the time, occassionally there is a decent one, but very rare), i can't recall the last time i played something as written, i like to say my improv skills suck but truth be told i can hang in there sometiemes in a pinch so i depends on the texture and style/period of the work. i have had to literally re-write parts of the of the score in some bach concerto reductions. i think the editors sometimes don't or can't play piano at all.  i leave things like 'sonatas for _____ and piano, etc' alone, things written specifically as solo for instrument and piano should be modified as little as possible preferrably not at all.

feel free to do what you must to give the solist the best opportunity for a great performance. the more that is going on in the solo part the more free you are to leave things out, add in small details, etc so long as
1. you preserve the harmonic basis
2. you leave in or substitute an equivalent que or important place where they solist must hear you for any sort of entrance, etc.

be mindful that you voice away from the solist, i.e. study their part and voice to the outer edges, usually you will be find to voice to the bass lines but be weary of cellos, double basses, tubas, trombones, etc. where the voicings might hang around each other.

keep anything interesting even if a big busy solo part of the music is up, i.e counter melody, etc.

feel free to show off a little and make things a bit more piano solo like in intros, endings, and interludes.

if you accompany a bunch for cello adn violin, and fidn yourself spending lots of times on those instrument's standards, have a look into 'the frustrated accompanist' series of simplifed orchestral reductions, they are generally very well reduced for you/re arragned and are easy to spruce up if you feel it needs it but they can save your hiny in a pinch if you can just manage to play as written.

[solfegehero]

Thanks for the reply. That's exactly what I'm currently doing with this work and have been doing with reductions in the past.
It's not so much that I do not know what to do when I'm handed a piano reduction. It's more that I cannot seem to understand the publishers motive. Why not make a proper playable piano transcription of the orchestral parts instead of letting a music theorist make a piano reduction no accompanist will ever play properly?! It doesn't serve the composer, accompanist or music well..And seeing that these concertos are more often played by a piano and not an orchestra it doesn't make any god damn sense

[quantum]

Most of the piano reductions I've played needed to be modified.  You've got to wonder if the editors of these editions were writing for octopus. 

I like to go for the acoustic equivalent on the piano.  Too often a transcriber will literally write the notes as the strings, or winds would play them.  Long notes that are held across 16 bars, arpeggios voiced for a violin, long sequences of 16 note triads that were originally intended to be played by 3 trombones, etc.  In such cases, I'll modify the score to play the pianistic equivalent of the effect achieved by the full orchestration.  Consulting a recording helps in evaluating orchestral tone color and effects. 

[ajspiano]

On occassion I've been known to reduce a score to a chord chart - then listen to the original a good number of times and just make the whole thing up in the style of the original.

^generally happens when I'm handed something relatively challenging with a day or 2 notice.