The Transcriber s Art - #40 Richard Yates Pavane, Op. 50 by Gabriel Fauré

Transcription

1 The Transriber s Art - 0 Rihard Yates Pavane, O 50 by Gabriel auré The guitar is a small orhestra It is olyhoni Every string is a different olor, a different voie Andrès Segovia Perhas Segovia was the first to make this observation, or maybe it was Hetor Berlioz also a guitarist Regardless of the attribution, it is true that the variations in tonal olor of whih the guitar is aable are a substantial soure of its harm and versatility But does that mean that the guitar is suited for laying musi written for orhestra? Well, there is that qualifying word small in the Segovia quotation and, of ourse, there lies the diffiulty: Orhestras, even small ones, are muh larger than guitars and the sound they an rodue in nearly any dimension you are to measure However, this has not deterred all guitarists The erformanes of orhestral musi by suh layers as Kazuhito Yamashita and, more reently, Jorge Caballero are astonishing But these Olymian aomlishments do more to imress us with their suerhuman tehnique than to assure us that laying orhestral musi on the guitar is feasible for the average layer Indeed, to hear Yamashita s Beethoven or Caballero s Dvorak an be simly disouraging for transribers looking to exand the guitar s reertoire And yet lose examination of some orhestral sores an reveal a simler omositional struture than is aarent from the sound that is rodued After all, in the eriod of harmoni ommon ratie orhestra omosers ut together their rogressions one triad at a time ust as the guitar omosers did And so, barring dense olyhony for whih we have too few fingers and strings, we an find reasonable iees for transrition In searhing this far afield, some will be less omfortable with the term transrition than with arrangement but, in any event, the boundaries of these terms are fuzzy and a ratial and musial result is what is most imortant I reently heard Gabriel auré s Pavane in shar minor, O 50 erformed by a brass orhestra at a onert to raise money for the vitims of last sring s earthquake in China Jay Chen, of Willamette University, reruited and organized members of the Columbia Symhony, Portland Oera, Oregon Symhony, Portland Ballet and regional universities The suess of that arrangement and erformane romted me to look at the sore to see if a guitar version were ossible The Pavane was written for a series of light summer onerts in 887 Haily for the transriber, it emloys a smallish orhestra onsisting of strings lus airs of flutes, oboes, larinets, bassoons and horns, although auré added a horus shortly before the first erformane The versions with and without horus have both been erformed regularly ever sine auré had a strong ambivalene about the orhestra He wrote only a handful of works for large ensembles and abandoned or destroyed several orhestral sores, yet he also omosed musi for immense ensembles Prométhée is sored for three wind bands, 00 strings, hars, and hoirs His biograher, Jean-Mihel Netoux wrote, He had a horror of vivid olours and effets, and showed little interest in ombinations of tone-olours, whih he thought were too ommonly a form of self-indulgene and a disguise for the absene of ideas and auré s lak of interest in the orhestra is sometimes ritiized as a weakness

2 In this ontext, the Pavane is interesting beause it seems to be a deliberate exerise in orhestral olor, muh as Ravel s Bolero was The main melody reeats in turn on different instruments or their ombinations This struture resents both the oortunity and the hallenge for a guitar transrition The guitar, uniquely among instruments, an olor these reetitions with a range of timbres, artiulations and dynamis and, in so doing, sustain interest over the extended form I do not reommend trying to imitate the atual original instruments but, rather, to exeriment with different sounds to find the ones that best fit the musi, the instrument, and the layer The size of the original ensemble is daunting as you an see in igure Yet, after sorting through the maze of lefs and transosing instruments, a basi struture is revealed that is within the reah of the guitar igure shows all of the notes of the original sore ombined onto only four staves The otave duliations are then eliminated and a more feliitous key hosen The line that ombines the first violins and the horns is ust a bit more than an be managed on the guitar and, beause it has no essential harmoni tones not resent in other voies, it was omitted The result is shown in igure not quite ready for the guitar but ertainly very lose The measures in these examles are the densest of the whole iee and were hosen to show how muh redution is both ossible and neessary A similar roedure was used throughout the transrition lutes, Clarinets, Bassoons, Voies Violins, Violas & & n n n n Cellos, Contra-basses Violins I, Horns? & n n igure Redution V n n igure

3 lutes & n Oboes & Clarinets in A & b Bassoons? n Horns in & n Soranos Altos Tenors Basses & & V? J Comme Comme J Comme J R on R on R on R o se ré - gner sur n o se ré - gner sur o se ré - gner sur n Violin I Violin Viola & & B Comme on o se ré - gner sur n n Cello Contra-Bass? t n n igure A few details and suggestions follow: Measure : I ket the exliit attern of a quarter note lus a quarter rest in the bass and suggest that these rests be observed literally rather than allowing the bass notes to ring through Later in the iee I hanged the line to half notes for textural variety and to simlify fingering Measure 0: This is the first aearane of trilet eighth notes in the melody against regular eighth notes in the middle voie While these an be awkward for layers unfamiliar with them, there are a oule of ways to roeed One is to break the quarter note beat down into six sixteenths and ratie it slowly until the feel for it is established A seond method is to fous on the melody, lay the trilet in orret time, and then simly insert the seond eighth note of the bass line in between the seond and third trilet eighth notes in the melody In ratie it will fall in about the right sot, and familiarity will hel smooth it out

4 Measure 5: I inluded a suggested erformane of the trill that gradually inreases the seed of its alternations Many other methods are ossible inluding an unmeasured ross-string trill for those layers with suffiient tehnique In the original sore this trill extended over two measures with the same harmoni underinning but was too diffiult to sustain on the guitar Notie that the trill in measure 6 is the same although the bass line is slightly different Measure : In order to reate more variety in the return of the main melody, I thikened the middle voie to inlude notes on eah eighth beat This substitutes a textural variation for the orhestration It sounds best if the middle voie whih at this oint is new to the listener is layed out more loudly than the uer melody whih is by now familiar Measure : This setion is a series of three reetitions of a four measure ontrauntal hrase eah a whole ste lower than the revious one The way in whih auré links these together is tyial of his use of raid modulation In the original sore the first hrase is reeated Without the resoures of the orhestra this seemed too stati and so I shortened it by deleting the reetition Measure 6: auré added variety here with a new aomanying line assigned to the ellos In the guitar transrition it weaves between the melody and the quarter note basses As in the setion at measure, laying this voie rominently over the melody adds to the interest If you have examles or suggestions for our small orhestra lease send them to: Rihard Yates rihard@yatesguitarom htt://wwwyatesguitarom

5 Transribed for guitar by Rihard Yates Andante molto moderato V Pavane h I J J Gabriel auré (85-9) J J V J J w J J 6 7 V 0 n n - V h I J J 0 J J J J V 6 V 9 V IV w J J I n J J I V n n n J J V n J J J J

6 V n J J n J J - J J 5 V Ÿ w J w h I J J J J 8 V V V J J n I w J J n V 0 V w I n I V n w V n f ƒ V I - I 5

7 6 V b b ƒ 9 b n I b V n b - b b 5 I V b b b b n b n rit 55 V J J b n I b b b nb b ƒ b n b - dim b b J J b I b n n b rit b b n b n n n J J 58 V J J n J J n J J 6 V 6 V 67 V - J J 0 I V n Ÿ w w J f J n I 5 5 w I IV J

8 70 V V w n ß b n IV V w n ß b 7 V 76 V - V n J J w π J J J J J J - J J 79 V 0 6 π rit - - IV J J 8 V J J - J J 8 V - J J J J J J π V 87 V Í rit