A lot of effort you have put into this. Congratulations, this is the start of a good work! A few things that would help a lot. Your orchestration is far too string heavy. Color comes first from your ww's. Always try first to place your parts with the ww's and then brass. After that, only then defer to your strings. When you do this (late Tchaikovsky was a great example) you will begin to milk color from your strings--because you have saved them. Secondly, you tend to over double your lines (over orchestrate), and those added voicings bogg your otherwise clean textures down. Keep in mind, only use the instruments you need at the time. Try and keep your orchestral textures on the light side. When you have a string melody and a string accompaniment, you severely lose color. Given a choice, because the strings are such a homogeneous family, interlock your brass or ww's with them as a separate voice (that is, don't double a brass or ww line with strings unless absolutely necessary), and attempt to do everything possible to insure a different family group gets the melody as opposed to the accompaniment. I wish I could give you mm numbers and very specific details, but the score presents so small there is no possible way. Again, main point: use your strings only when necessary. In your opening section a lot of those tutti areas the brass can perform alone. The brass are really loud, they don't need the strings to carry--even more so when they direct their bells above the stands (Sibelius 7th Symphony--last portion). Famous thought from R. Strauss when he conducted: "never look at the trombones. It only encourages them to play louder." But if you just globally look at your score--not the details--but just the overall bulk, you can see where you over double and bigly favor the strings. When you have a chance, take a look at a Mahler, R. Strauss, or Tchaikovsky score and you will notice an immediate difference. So, some nice writing, but trim things down.
Thanks for your kind words and encouragement. Sadly, I can't take credit for the orchestration. Except where I have transcribed vocal lines, it is almost entirely the work of Leoncavallo. I might also, politely, take issue with some of your statements about orchestral colour. As a string player myself, I find Tchaikovsky's music to be entirely rooted in the strings, not the other way around. I don't believe Leoncavallo over orchestrates or doubles a little too much - for the best examples or over orchestration and multiple doublings, look to composers such as Rachmaninov and Vaughan Williams. Yet, despite these possible defects in orchestration, their work sounds lush and wonderful. I would not label the strings as homogeneous, though they can be, if written for in certain ways. The difference in feel, mood and sound between, say a high cello playing softly or violas playing loudly on their bottom string is huge - I would say the colour available in the strings is at least as interesting and varied as that available from the wind or brass (perhaps another homogeneous family by the same argument?). Having said that, the electronic realisation here does not do the strings much justice, nor does Leoncavallo use them to their fullest. If you would like to hear some of my original orchestration, please try some of my Debussy arrangements - I use the instruments much more sparingly - as I feel befits the composer and period. Edit: I should clarify that I did remove the bass clarinet part as the ensemble the arrangement was intended for didn't have one available.
A lot of effort you have put into this. Congratulations, this is the start of a good work! A few things that would help a lot. Your orchestration is far too string heavy. Color comes first from your ww's. Always try first to place your parts with the ww's and then brass. After that, only then defer to your strings. When you do this (late Tchaikovsky was a great example) you will begin to milk color from your strings--because you have saved them. Secondly, you tend to over double your lines (over orchestrate), and those added voicings bogg your otherwise clean textures down. Keep in mind, only use the instruments you need at the time. Try and keep your orchestral textures on the light side. When you have a string melody and a string accompaniment, you severely lose color. Given a choice, because the strings are such a homogeneous family, interlock your brass or ww's with them as a separate voice (that is, don't double a brass or ww line with strings unless absolutely necessary), and attempt to do everything possible to insure a different family group gets the melody as opposed to the accompaniment. I wish I could give you mm numbers and very specific details, but the score presents so small there is no possible way. Again, main point: use your strings only when necessary. In your opening section a lot of those tutti areas the brass can perform alone. The brass are really loud, they don't need the strings to carry--even more so when they direct their bells above the stands (Sibelius 7th Symphony--last portion). Famous thought from R. Strauss when he conducted: "never look at the trombones. It only encourages them to play louder." But if you just globally look at your score--not the details--but just the overall bulk, you can see where you over double and bigly favor the strings. When you have a chance, take a look at a Mahler, R. Strauss, or Tchaikovsky score and you will notice an immediate difference. So, some nice writing, but trim things down.
Thanks for your kind words and encouragement. Sadly, I can't take credit for the orchestration. Except where I have transcribed vocal lines, it is almost entirely the work of Leoncavallo. I might also, politely, take issue with some of your statements about orchestral colour. As a string player myself, I find Tchaikovsky's music to be entirely rooted in the strings, not the other way around. I don't believe Leoncavallo over orchestrates or doubles a little too much - for the best examples or over orchestration and multiple doublings, look to composers such as Rachmaninov and Vaughan Williams. Yet, despite these possible defects in orchestration, their work sounds lush and wonderful. I would not label the strings as homogeneous, though they can be, if written for in certain ways. The difference in feel, mood and sound between, say a high cello playing softly or violas playing loudly on their bottom string is huge - I would say the colour available in the strings is at least as interesting and varied as that available from the wind or brass (perhaps another homogeneous family by the same argument?). Having said that, the electronic realisation here does not do the strings much justice, nor does Leoncavallo use them to their fullest.
If you would like to hear some of my original orchestration, please try some of my Debussy arrangements - I use the instruments much more sparingly - as I feel befits the composer and period.
Edit: I should clarify that I did remove the bass clarinet part as the ensemble the arrangement was intended for didn't have one available.