Description
Instrumentation: Piano and orchestra
orchestration by Martin Torp
Difficulty: medium
fue 25715
2.2.2.2.-2.0.0.0, strings
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Given that large sections of Fanny Hensel’s piano cycle are clearly orchestral in conception, this magnum opus by the important female composer was (simply) crying out to be orchestrated. On the other hand, her extensive musical cycle also contains genuinely pianistic passages that would have lost much of their musical substance had they been transferred to other instruments.
Whereas a composer like Ravel, in his orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, occasionally added notes of his own, Torp has remained strictly faithful to the original in this respect – using, as his basis, Fanny Hensel’s own annotated manuscript first published in autumn 2000. In parts 1, 2 and 12 the composer incorporated references to A Midsummer Night’s Dream composed by her brother Felix, and in the final Choral (No. 13) it is possible to discern the beginning of Bach’s St Mathew Passion. Martin Torp has underlined these musical references by appropriate orchestration in his transcription.
