Tag: symphony

trebleclef Some learned colleagues in the Facebook Concert Band Orchestration group have shown me the light of day, as it were. I’ve been carrying the torch for a straight transcription of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 6 in A Major from orchestra to band without a key change, thinking that any such change away from A Major would be “dumbing it down.” Turns out I’ve been shooting myself in the foot. The key of A Major is so hard for some instruments, especially Eb instruments like saxes, that it’s nearly impossible to play for all but the most professional of ensembles. I’ve been limiting the number of ensembles that could perform my arrangement. This was made quite evident when I made a copy of the score of the 1st movement available for review.

I have since transposed my arrangement into the key of G Major. This retains some of the feel of the A Major original, yet cuts down on the number of sharps in the key signature for everyone. As a result, it should open up the arrangement for more ensembles to be able to play it.

Here’s the YouTube link where you can listen to the two versions back to back and compare them:

A Major Version: https://youtu.be/bGvums5A6jg
G Major Version: https://youtu.be/S5E2X2x6TIs

If you have an ensemble and wish to perform this movement, please contact me and I’ll get a score out to you ASAP. Thanks for listening!

My fascination…some might call it an obsession…with the music of Anton Bruckner’s Symphony Number 6 in A Major has continued to this date, in the form of concert band / wind ensemble arrangements which I have completed for the first, second, and third movements of said symphony. I am now working on the fourth movement (the Finale), and it’s turning out to be more difficult than the middle two movements, and possibly more difficult than the first movement. In any event, I am around 90-100 measures short of finishing my first full symphony, and I’ve already arranged over 320 measures of the last movement to date. To quote Patrick Stewart, “Gods, what a monster!” This is a big symphony, albeit not when compared to some of Mahler’s gargantuan offerings.

One thing I’ve learned in the course of arranging this symphony is the 18th-century use of a dynamics mark called the “Keil,” which is pronounced like the name of the character “Kyle” on a certain animated TV show and marked like this: ( ). While this looks like a staccatissimo mark, it is not one. It stands for a combination of an accent and a staccato articulation, according to a correspondence I had on February 5th, 2024 with Dr. William Carragan, the author of “Anton Bruckner: Eleven Symphonies” (a.k.a. “The Bruckner Red Book”). He wrote:

That mark, like a vertical black arrowhead, is very common in Bruckner. Its German name is “Keil”. It means a solid but not abrupt accent, more emphatic than the shorter staccato. It should not be overly lengthened as some inexperienced conductors do, nor should it be abruptly abbreviated. You should absolutely include the Keil in your arrangement, and then explain to people how it should be played, as a staccato with an extra nudge.

Unfortunately, I must report to Dr. Carragan’s disappointment that the music writing software I use, Steinberg’s Dorico Pro 5.1.21 as of this writing, refuses to support a Keil mark properly. I cannot get it to work alongside the all-too-similar staccatissimo mark without serious performance and/or playback issues. Therefore, I had to make a choice: I chose to keep the staccatissimo mark on its own, and rewrote the Keil mark as a simple accent above a staccato mark. It works well enough so far. My apologies, Dr. Carragan.

In any event, I said I’d arranged the first three movements of Bruckner’s 6th Symphony, and here I would like to present SoundCloud links to them for your listening pleasure. Please let me know what you think by dropping me a line from the contact page once you’ve listened to any or all of them. Thank you for taking the time to listen!

Here’s the 1st Movement (the Majestoso)…