Transposing on sight

[Chaszz]

I just learned that when orchestral musicians read a part in a score for an instrument that no longer exists, they transpose it on sight to the key of the more modern instrument, if it happens to be in a different key, as is often the case when a modern instrument replaces an older one. I had thought that publishers would issue a transposed score.

Leaving aside the issue of original instruments vs. modern ones, just from a technical viewpoint this is astounding. I have already looked at scores of and listened to playing of very difficult pieces, and been in awe of the musicians who could negotiate them. Now the idea that they are also sometimes transposing all the notes to another key at sight is so amazing that I'm getting a little queasy just thinking about it!! Peter, is this true??

[Peter]

Well I don't know about orchestral musicians having to do this, but there are some well documented feats of transposing at sight by musicians. I think it was Brahms who was accompanying a violinist on a piano a semitone flat and he transposed the piano part up at sight. I forget the name of the young pianist who could transpose any of the Bach preludes and fugues at sight. There are countless phenomenal feats of transposing and sight reading. Liszt played through the Grieg piano concerto at sight from manuscript in front of the startled composer! He played a Grieg violin sonata from sight (including the violin part!) - He was just as amazing with orchestral scores. In addition to this many had phenomenal memories such as Liszt or Saint-Saens who as a child could play any of Beethoven's sonatas from memory!

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'Man know thyself'

[SR]

It is very common for french horn players, having been one I know. Probaby 20% of the parts you are given are for horn in Eflat. When played on a horn in F every note must be played one full step lower than written. It's not really a problem, it's just part of life.

Where I get impressed is when pianist accompany singers and must transpose up or down a small interval, but do it in real time in two clefs and two hands.

It is said Mozart could mentally fold down an orchestra score and play it on piano in real time. This also includes transposing the wind parts.

Steve

[Gurn Blanston]

I just happened to be looking at a score today for the allegretto to Op 27#2, and printed at the top was "If you wish to play this in authentic fashion, play every note a semitone lower", or words to that effect. As though Moonlight wasn't hard enough as written!!
Regards,
Gurn

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
I just learned that when orchestral musicians read a part in a score for an instrument that no longer exists, they transpose it on sight to the key of the more modern instrument, if it happens to be in a different key, as is often the case when a modern instrument replaces an older one. I had thought that publishers would issue a transposed score.

Leaving aside the issue of original instruments vs. modern ones, just from a technical viewpoint this is astounding. I have already looked at scores of and listened to playing of very difficult pieces, and been in awe of the musicians who could negotiate them. Now the idea that they are also sometimes transposing all the notes to another key at sight is so amazing that I'm getting a little queasy just thinking about it!! Peter, is this true??

Often the orchestral parts in the score itself were written (published) as they actually sound, so the conductor would need to be able to transpose the various parts such as clarinets, horns, and trumpets if he wants to refer the player to the desired pitch. I've seen the parts published both ways, so the conductor does need to be able to transpose and to know where transposed pitch of each of the instruments or the real pitch from a transposed part. Composers, of course, will have to know how all that works together. But I think that the horn parts are probably the most frequently transposed parts.

[urtextmeister]

I have seen horn players transpose at sight and other instrumentalists do the same. Trumpet players, for instance, will occasionally oblige if the composer neglected to transpose their part. If you get used to transposing things a whole step, it is probably like learning a different clef--not terribly hard once you get used to it. I agree that really complete keyboard players are the most amazing. Great feats of reading or memorizing are always fun to hear about. The Brahms anecdote mentioned by Peter is a favorite. I believe it was Joachim he was playing with and I think the piece was the Beethoven c minor sonata. I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.
One of my favorite memory anecdotes involves Arthur Rubinstein. He writes about learning the Franck Symphonic Variations on a train, strictly in his head. By the time he got to his first he was ready to play for memory.
Martha Argerich claims that she never had to look at the music for Prokofiev's concerto #3 because she heard her roommate practicing it.
My old boss used to know a guy in New York who could play the entire Ring cycle for memory and sing all the parts! Great party trick.
About that Moonlight second movement: What the...? This makes no sense to me. Apparently tuning has crept up since the Baroque when an A was closer to 420 than 440 but that is still not a semitone (what I call a half step). Besides, does this imply that only the second mvt. should played this way? The key scheme of c#min-Db maj-c# min seems so important to the overall structure. Was this a handwritten note or part of the edition?

[Gurn Blanston]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
...About that Moonlight second movement: What the...? This makes no sense to me. Apparently tuning has crept up since the Baroque when an A was closer to 420 than 440 but that is still not a semitone (what I call a half step). Besides, does this imply that only the second mvt. should played this way? The key scheme of c#min-Db maj-c# min seems so important to the overall structure. Was this a handwritten note or part of the edition?

It was printed at the top of the page. The score was for the allegretto only. I took it to mean that it was written for a modern instrument and if you were playing a fortepiano and wished to be in "concert pitch" that you would play everything a half-step lower. The score was for that movement only so I don't know how the rest of it was set up.
Regards,
Gurn

[Chaszz]

I didn't realize that this transposing would often be a half-step or a whole step and therefore is a little easier than say, transposing 3 1/2 steps or whatever. It makes sense that horns, when "improved", would still be somewhere close by to their original pitches. So perhaps the pianists who do extraordinary tranpositions with two hands, and the conductors, who must grasp everything at once across all the transposed keys, are the really amazing ones.

Nobody's life is at stake here, as they are in heart surgery or jumbo jet piloting. But apart from that it's hard to think of an equally difficult and admirable set of technical skills in any line of work.



[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited July 03, 2003).]

[SR]

Originally posted by Sorrano:

Often the orchestral parts in the score itself were written (published) as they actually sound, so the conductor would need to be able to transpose the various parts such as clarinets, horns, and trumpets if he wants to refer the player to the desired pitch. I've seen the parts published both ways, so the conductor does need to be able to transpose and to know where transposed pitch of each of the instruments or the real pitch from a transposed part. Composers, of course, will have to know how all that works together. But I think that the horn parts are probably the most frequently transposed parts.

In my experience, most conductor scores I can recall notate in the instuments key just so the conductor can move quickly without having to transpose during discussions with players. If I recall properly most scores call for Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Violoncello, Basso, Horns in Eflat (or F), Clarinet in Bflat, Trumpets in Bflat, Etc. The wind part are not notated in C to match the strings.

Regards

Steve

[urtextmeister]

Gurn,

Your copy of the Moonlight second mvt. wouldn't happen to have two sharps in the key signature as opposed to five flats, would it?
It has been my experience that conductor's scores are almost written with the instruments in the key of their instrument. In other words, in the key of f major, the clarinets are written the the key of G (assuming they are Bb clarinets). I have seen a few rare examples of a score "in C," where everything is written as if it were a c instrument.

[Rod]

Originally posted by urtextmeister:
Apparently tuning has crept up since the Baroque when an A was closer to 420 than 440 but that is still not a semitone (what I call a half step).

I have a number of baroque recordings where A is identified as being 415.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by SR:
In my experience, most conductor scores I can recall notate in the instuments key just so the conductor can move quickly without having to transpose during discussions with players. If I recall properly most scores call for Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Violoncello, Basso, Horns in Eflat (or F), Clarinet in Bflat, Trumpets in Bflat, Etc. The wind part are not notated in C to match the strings.

Regards

Steve

In checking with my Norton study scores, among others that I have, I tend to agree for the most part. The clarinets, however, are notated in their own key (b-flat, usually). Trumpets may be notated in their own key, as well, or in C. As an experiment I've done some sequencing of some of these scores and have had to transpose some of these instruments as I've played them with the other tracks of the sequence.

[John Rasmussen]

As an oboist, I have sometimes had to read English horn parts written in F on the oboe, necessitating transposing a fifth. It's really not hard once one gets used to it; but you can't let your mind wander or you'll get seriously lost. But I don't envy horn players, who have to negotiate every transposition possible, including the tritone from B to F in Brahms' first two symphonies!

In some old band scores, the piccolo parts are written in Db. Now there's a bad transposition! Especially since the Db piccolo is obsolete.

Although scores are nearly always printed as the composer wrote them, transposed parts are often published for the players.

The notes on my recording of Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto state that, since the piano was a half-step flat, LvB had to transpose from Bb to B at sight at the premiere. What fun! But probably, with his phenomenal gifts at improvisation, it was no big deal to him.