10/25/25 - Analysis Series #4: The Need-To-Know About Orchestration

Orchestration is one of the most important elements to establishing a composer’s “voice,” that certain sound that allows you to associate a tune with a composer, even when you've never heard the tune before. In short, orchestration is a composer’s, songwriter’s, producer’s, etc. choice of what instruments or sounds they will use to tell their musical stories. While history has seen its fair share of great orchestrators for the orchestra, the term is not exclusive to that medium. Quincy Jones, one of music history’s greatest record producers, has just as distinctive an orchestrational voice as Maurice Ravel or Nicolai Rimsky Korsakov (widely regarded as two of the greatest orchestrators ever).

            The idea of orchestration can also be applied to solo instruments. Ravel’s ability to orchestrate for piano solo was just as inventive and stunning as his ability to orchestrate for an actual orchestra. Beethoven’s piano orchestrations likewise were incredibly daring. His famous (or infamous) “Hammerklavier” (badass name, by the way…pretty metal) op. 106 was so cutting edge in terms of its orchestration that Nietzsche, writing in 1878 (60 years after the sonata first appeared), went so far to suggest that the sonata was an “unsatisfying piano reduction of a symphony.”

            Commonly, composers farm out the job of orchestrating to assistants known as “orchestrators.” This is ubiquitous in musical theater where the composers are normally so busy writing and rewriting music that they don’t have time to create orchestrations for the pit orchestra. As necessary as this practice may be, it normally leads to the overshadowing of other inventive and talented composers and musicians. I would venture to say that few people have heard of Michael Sterobin or Jonathan Tunick, but I would assume that many have heard of Stephen Sondheim, Sunday in the Park with George, Sweeney Todd, and Into the Woods. While Sondheim is (rightfully) remembered as the composer for these three shows, Sterobin's and Tunick’s names (regrettably) are not normally recognized as the orchestrators. (Sterobin orchestrated Sunday and Tunick orchestrated Sweeney and Into the Woods.) Yet the scores for these shows are nearly as iconic as Sondheim’s music is.

            Another common use of orchestration is when people transcribe or arrange pieces originally written for one orchestration for another. This is seen in piano reductions of full orchestral pieces (see Liszt’s transcriptions of all nine Beethoven Symphonies) or paraphrases of operatic works for solo piano (again, see Liszt, and Percy Grainger’s Ramble on Love from Der Rosenkavalier). One of my favorites in this category is Andy Akiho’s masterful transcription of the opening of Into the Woods for piano solo. Occasionally the process goes in the opposite direction, from solo piano to a larger ensemble (see Charles Ives’s The Alcotts transcribed for wind ensemble by Jonathan Elkus for example). And often the process goes from one ensemble to another, as is the case with Ralph Vaughan Williams’s English Folksong Suite, originally for band and later orchestrated for orchestra by the composer.

            Orchestrations invite listeners into distinct sound worlds, and creative orchestrators can create a fully immersive experience in sound, even when their score is paired with a film. Think of Danny Elfman’s score to The Nightmare Before Christmas full of its distinctive, bone-like xylophones and woodblocks, wailing clarinets (a move lifted from Mahler, by the way), and saxophones (likely an influence Elfman’s band Oingo Boingo). Tim Burton’s film would not be nearly as iconic as it is without Elfman’s music, and Elfman’s music would not have been nearly as effective without the orchestrations provided by Steve Bartek, Mark McKenzie, and Marc Mann. Next time you’re listening to some of your favorite music, slow down and try to lock in to exactly what instruments are playing where and how those choices on the part of the orchestrator influence your listening experience. Often these unsung heroes are the masters of how we listen to and enjoy music.

Quincy Jones, Soul Bossa Nova: https://open.spotify.com/track/0Jw3cPBXlGnA6DEJrZSTI0?si=4cb87fce04764105

Maurice Ravel, Miroirs, M.43: III. Un barque sur l’océan (Pierre-Laurent Aimard, piano): https://open.spotify.com/track/1yUTMxHXs5UUfLUC9GQn9g?si=ddd6e92ff43c4d81

Maurice Ravel, Miroirs, M.43: III. Un barque sur l’océan (Boston Symphony, Seiji Ozawa, conductor): https://open.spotify.com/track/2XY6L2KlOjp6Bxmf969EYn?si=14cee0657b2a4280

Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonata op. 106 “Hammerklavier”: I. Allegro (Mitsuko Uchida, piano): https://open.spotify.com/track/6vUQabuV5uTGq9kh6TvgyT?si=5254e0e997684020

Ludwig van Beethoven, trans. Franz Liszt, Symphony no. 3 in Eb Major “Eroica”: I. Allegro con brio (Cyprien Katsaris, piano): https://open.spotify.com/track/4P244La9dmHXumwKgNNUH1?si=754c5aa045f042ce

Stephen Sondheim, orch. Tunick, “Prologue: Into the Woods” from Into the Woods (2022 Broadway Cast): https://open.spotify.com/track/5mJcu6XoLf0uiYMjpVL3hs?si=1af08e27734f43a3

Stephen Sondheim, arr. Akiho, “Prologue: Into the Woods” from Into the Woods for piano solo (Anthony De Mare, piano): https://open.spotify.com/track/0cEK9hoXGSXTgfIOueLsSx?si=69c771b0714f447e

Charles Ives, Piano Sonata no. 2, Concord Mass. 1840-1860: III. The Alcotts (Marc-André Hamelin, piano): https://open.spotify.com/track/150fORkYgd86AvvLp7jYcJ?si=2c4c06db04514479

Charles Ives, orch. Elkus Piano Sonata no. 2, Concord Mass. 1840-1860: III. The Alcotts (U.S. Maring Band, Col. Timothy W. Foley, conductor): https://open.spotify.com/track/2Rc6HplSHRFW9U09ySeGuV?si=a124f8bf33d24b54

Danny Elfman, Overture to the Nightmare Before Christmas:

https://open.spotify.com/track/4r2IPR6tLBgF1dl2FqcPfF?si=1e38ceebc17a441d