Debussy/Ravel - Sarabande {orchestrated}

Claude-Achille Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He and Maurice Ravel were the most prominent figures associated with Impressionist music, though Debussy disliked the term when applied to his compositions. He was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in his native France in 1903. Debussy was among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and his use of non-traditional scales and chromaticism influenced many composers who followed.

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Sarabande No. 2 from Pour le piano (1894-1901) Orchestrated by Maurice Ravel
Dedication: Mme. E. Rouart (Yvonne Lerolle)

Maurice Ravel’s incomparable skill in orchestration and command of orchestral colour is evident both in his own works and in his orchestrations of music by other composers. His versions of both Chabrier’s vibrant Menuet pompeux and the colourful commedia dell’arte figures of Schumann’s Carnaval were commissions for ballet, while new life was given to his late friend Debussy’s Sarabande et Danse at the request of publisher Jean Jobert. Ravel’s iconic orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition makes telling use of a large orchestra, vividly depicting scenes that range from the playful to the macabre.

[davidbosch]

Wonderful! Ravel was truly a genious orchestrator!

[rocketsummer]

this has been my favorite piano piece of all time since my high school string orchestra played an arrangement for a contest, and now listening to this full arrangement as a composer about to graduate college, it makes me see i still have much to learn. the impressionists were such masters of texture and orchestration 🥲

[andrewfortmusic]

When I first listened to this, I thought it was such a pretty piece; a good remedy to a bad day.
Then 2:28 hit--


And I cried. It's so beautiful that I couldn't contain myself.

Thank you, Debussy, for your beautiful, heartfelt music for the piano and many other arrangments--and thank you, Ravel, for your sense of aesthetics and your mastery of the orchestra--a medium so difficult, few can ever hope to write for it well.

Also, on another note, this is a collaboration between my two favorite composers ever, so how could I not love it?

[Aaa-pznh]

Man, the orchestral version sounds so epic!! Great orchestration by Ravel.

[TheAceEmpress]

Time to take this and make it an animation

[MultiNilon]

To me, Ravels orchestration doesnt fit to this wonderful masterpiece. Ravels orchestration skills are legitimately famous (P. of an Exhibition or Tarantelle Styrienne and many others) – but here I really have to say, it sounds just technical exercise how the different groups change any two bars. The orchestration disturbes the emotional dramaturgy of the piece. For example 3 before 9 how music lets go (in p), I think it requires Vln1 to have the melody, not ww.