Ironically, Petrushka was initially intended by Stravinsky to be a piano concerto until Diaghilev commissioned another ballet from him. Rather than putting Petrushka aside and starting from scratch, he decided to incorporate those parts. And tbf, the Russian Dance and Petrushka's House are sometimes pretty soloistic.
Mahler uses the piano in the massive orchestra for his 8th symphony. He uses it mostly to play harp-like lines, often in unison with the harps, or occassionally to add color to certain lines with the celeste.
I listen to a lot of Russian operas and I noticed the same. It seems the piano is more frequently used in Russian orchestral music than in orchestral music outside of Russia (?). Good examples are probably the opera "Sadko" (Rimsky Korsakov) and "Ruslan and Ludmilla" (Glinka). Also Rimsky Korsakov wrote in his book "Principles of Orchestration": "The use of a piano in the orchestra (apart from pianoforte concertos) belongs almost entirely to the Russian school. The object is two-fold: the quality of tone, either alone, or combined with-32- that of the harp, is made to imitate a popular instrument, the guzli, (as in Glinka), or a soft peal of bells. When the piano forms part of an orchestra, not as a solo instrument, an upright is preferable to a grand, but today the piano is gradually being superseded by the celesta, first used by Tschaikovsky. In the celesta, small steel plates take the place of strings, and the hammers falling on them produce a delightful sound, very similar to the glockenspiel. The celesta is only found in full orchestras; when it is not available it should be replaced by an upright piano, and not the glockenspiel."
The argument that the piano doesn't blend is interesting, because technically you can say that about any section. The fact that instruments don't completely blend is what makes an orchestral texture so colourful. A lot of modern Wind Band music has good examples of piano used very effectively in an ensemble - off the top of my head, Dance Movements by Sparke and Symphony No.3 by Barnes both blend and feature the piano in all the ways you described (as a feature, a texture, a colour, a percussion and a doubler).
I study and do orchestration for musicals, so I'm used to piano parts a lot. Granted, there's limited instrumentation in musicals but that's why it works well there. For symphonic orchestras, it's another matter. It best serves as pitched percussion.
I love arranging for small theater orchestras. You do have to "overuse" the piano by concert-work standards, but it creates such a sound that is associated with the theater. In that situation, we often get the piano parts already and have to arrange around that, but I usually make some parts of the piano score cues, played only in rehearsal and not with the ensemble. Sometimes it's helpful to approach that like a romantic piano n-tet, and a lot of Kurt Weill's stuff has that sound to it.
Weird timing; I was discussing this topic with someone an hour or two ago. 😄One other thing: old-school film composers like Korngold often used the piano as a "rhythm section instrument", bridging the gap between the percussion and the standard orchestral instruments - a part that's more felt than heard. I think even John Williams does this occasionally (the main theme of Star Wars springs to mind). This might be a tradition from musical theatre, IDK.
Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů used the piano in a lot of his orchestral pieces like in his symphonies or even in some of his concertos (like in his oboe concerto and harpsichord concerto). What I find particularly interesting is that the piano parts are quite busy in their own right, but it still doesn’t sound like a “piano concerto in all but name”. Highly recommend to check his stuff out. French/Swiss composer Arthur Honegger also used the piano in his 3rd and 4th symphony mostly for doubling chords and bass lines.
I was also going to mention Martinu, until I saw your comment...his music is so great; modern sounding, yet tonal on his own terms and the way he uses the piano with orchestra is a masterclass in nuance
Best example I can think of for piano as percussion is John Williams "Battle in the Snow" from Empire Strikes Back. The piano part is basically doing the job of timpani, xylophone, and snare, sometimes doubling them and sometimes on its own.
Great video, Ryan. Besides the Saint-Saens "Organ" symphony another mentioned, Copland's "Rodeo" ballet suite is full of Piano, both alone and doubling. It really adds a lot of barndance color in the Hoedown portion!
Great timing, I'm currently in the middle of writing a piece which has a piano with the orchestra and I've been trying to get more mileage out of it...
A good friend of mine played the Saint-Saens Symphony in Fribourg, and invited me to share a glass with the orchestra. Great memories, a masterful time.
Great example. The piano actually plays quite a bit in the second half of that symphony; the part is 7 pages of craziness. Nice use of Organ as well. 🙂(Favorite piece of mine, for sure!)
Great video! Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances (another Russian!) is a brilliant example of piano with orchestra. He blends it in so well to the rest of the tone palate it feels like it really belongs in the orchestra. I'm surprised you didn't mention Carmina Burana which calls for *2* pianos alongside its orchestra. It also calls for a bunch of other tuned percussion though so they don't feel out of place and doubling them with bells and glockenspiels creates a really nice effect.
Hindemith discusses this shortly in his book "Unterweisung im Tonsatz". He says the piano is not really mixable with the rest of the orchestra because of the tempered tuning of the piano. Most other instruments are free to adjust their pitches. He says if the piano accompanies a solo instrument, or just a few, they are likely to adjust to the piano but the more instruments are added the worse they can mix. He also says thats the reason why there a mostly piano concertos where the piano opposes the orchestra, so this difference is actually beneficial.
@@KingstonCzajkowski Bells and xylophone are usually used in a manner so they need to stand out a little. Harp also has a distinct timbre, but I think it is able to mix better because its volume is usually also much lower than the pianos.
I always use Piano in my pieces as its my main instrument and I build everything around it. I think that when its used correctly the sound complements the orchestra fine.
One work I heard recently that reinforces your 3rd point, is The Black Maskers Suite by Roger Sessions...here, it plays a lot like a harp, but not only takes advantage of the tunings you mentioned, but seems to be chosen over a harp for its increased volume within the ensemble...there is a score following video of it on YT if anyone wants to see/hear what I am talking about
I've been looking forward to this one! The Saint-Saens example is so unique and otherworldly, I'm glad you included it. I know a few specific examples from film score where it's used as another bass instrument but would probably go unnoticed unless you read the sheet music. And James Horner used four pre-recorded grand pianos in The Amazing Spider-Man. Sometimes it's an intimate solo and sometimes it's a unique layered effect of four pianos.
Great video! I once played piano on an orchestral arrangement of Piazzolla's Grand Tango. Beyond doubling the basses occasionally, my part had nothing to do with the strings, and I was mostly by myself playing textures or providing rhythmic elements. It never occurred to me why then, but it makes perfect sense now.
Interestingly, I feel like I hear a lot of Piano in Eastern Asian compositions, particularly gaming and anime. Yoko Shimomura for instance uses piano in so many of her pieces
It's interesting that you mention that the piano can be used like a percussion, because when I was taking a music fundamentals class, I think it was, my teacher said the same thing, because of how the keys hammer against the strings.
Yeah the non mix element is very apparent when you try to mix two music tracks of the same song but one is performed on piano and one performed on violin. So for example - on pixabay there is a great Rondo Alla Turca by Gregor Quendel. It's in both instruments and I've tried to mix them together in Audacity to imitate orchestra. Piano simply refused to cooperate. No matter what kind of effects I added it just went full resonance with other tracks. Wild thing. Then I've realised that I've never heard piano in orchestra setting and here I am! Cool video! Thank you for it :d
By the time of C.P.E Bach it was already a part of the continuo realization. You can find in Haydn, Mozart (e.g.) symphonies and concertos the figures and even in Beethovens concertos manuscripts a continuo part that the performer must play. The pianist in that day was exactly a conductor along side with the concertino. More about these we can find in the researches of the hungarian pianist Tibor Szász. 👍
2:33 Beautifully Mysterious 3:29 Rich and Decent I say...Mmhmmm 3:42 There's the caramel to ghe the chocolate ice cream 3:59 Like Ken Turner and J.D. Sumner singing on the exact same pitch 4:08 Cheesy and Childish...I love it 6:18 Oh so satisfying 6:29 Grand Design 6:45 Tense and Creepy
Here is the quote: "The use of a piano in the orchestra (apart from pianoforte concertos) belongs almost entirely to the Russian school" (from his "Principles of Orchestration").
Shostakovich's 5th Symphony features piano, most prominently at the start of the development of the 1st movement--elsewhere it kind of doubles other instruments.
I don’t think it started becoming a member of the orchestra until the Twentieth Century, and even then it depends on the piece. The piano’s timbre is a nice addition to the orchestra’s sound for sure. 😌👍
The saxophone is an instrument that is left out of orchestra yet in my opinion has easily the best classical sounding tone out of the winds. The classical saxophone sound is like a bassoon and clarinet mixed with a golden rich tone. But I can get why it is left out. Besides the obvious answer of everyone associating saxophone with jazz and main stream things, the other reason is saxophone players aren't ready yet. Most classical saxophone pieces with orchestra are concertos. It's rare to find an orchestral piece without it being a solo for saxophone or even having a saxophone solo in it. But the reason saxophone players aren't ready is because these solos are usually made to be tough as heck, and fast with technical challenges or slow with altissimo mixed in to make it "cool". I've seldom heard a classical saxophone player play a soft lyrical piece without something in there to "impress". Why does this matter? I've heard violinist's play much easier solos for violins, yet we don't see it as boring, the violinist's let their amazing sound and interpretation make it fun to watch. The saxophone player will do some of that, but there'll be something in their to make it tough yet cool without letting their normal playing speak for itself. you know how you sometimes see a prodigy violinist at like 5 years old and soloing with orchestras? something like that isn't possible for saxophone players yet. Heck, we are impressed when we find a highschooler playing like that. But this isn't us saxophonists faults. In saxophone history, when amazing classical saxophone players wanted something to play they had to commission it. And they wanted to show off the saxophones amazingness, so that orchestral writers would catch on. So what did they do? They showed the saxophones virtuosic speed as well as altissimo. Which sort of came back to bite them. As we don't have many pieces for beginners from our older reprotoire. In my sophomore year of highschool for Solo and ensemble, I wanted to play a concerto, only to find out that there were absolutely none for my level without digging something up on jw pepper that was made more recently and less likely to be good. So I played the piece "Concertino Da Camera" which really was a big challenge. There are still pieces being commissioned for saxophone today, but our old repertoire for classical doesn't go that far back and when it did, there was not much made for beginners. It really makes me sad, because whenever I hear the Saxophone in a classical piece it always has an amazing sound, but that beautiful sound is clouded by the jazz kazzoo like tone that so many people associate saxophone with. Nice video though!
Yeah I agree. I am incorporating saxophones into my composition in a symphony orchestra. I am not giving them any featured solos at the moment. However, I was wondering if you had any ideas of how I could use saxophones effectively? Since I don't want to have them to just double another instrument's part. What is their orchestral role? What is a specific niche that they could fill?
one partial reason you don't see very many child prodigies of saxophones (or any wind instrument to be frank,) is that the wind instruments are all "wind" instruments, and require decently developed lungs. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but most wind players in the US start in middle school, while orchestra kids can start early elementary, due to the lack of a need for developed lungs. I know this is just picking and choosing one thing out of this paragraph, but I just kinda wanted to point it out. You don't see very many french horn child prodigies either, and french horn has some pretty easy but beautiful repertoire.
the saxophone usually not being in an orchestra is a combination of it being a relatively new instrument, but also the fact that instrument part makers then basically had an (unfortunately successful) de facto smear campaign against the sax and its creator: they were able to push alot of other musicians at the time against it, to the point some of them would threaten to leave on the spot if a saxophone was included in the orchestra, and composers and conductors weren't really willing to fight for its case. It really was that petty.
I made a track with piano and cello. It works really well, maybe because cello is quite low in frequence. I have seen other RUclipsrs use piano in the beginning and then change it to violin when other instruments are introduced.
Aren't there differences in tuning on the piano and orchestra? I've noticed that sometimes when the piano gets higher in its register in unison with the orchestra, it can sound kind of out of tune. I don't know if that's a tuning thing or a timbre thing, though.
Other than the equal tempered thing, piano string being hit by hammer is not perfectly harmonic. In order to make a piano in tune to itself, it needs to slightly stretch the octave especially the lowest and highest end. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics#The_Railsback_curve
Great video, Ryan. Thanks. Oh, no one told the oboe IT had to blend. BTW, my favorite orchestra piece with piano is Georgia on my Mind, The Loft Sessions with Mario Jose (best voice in the world, fight me). When the piano enters, it feels like Hoagy just joined the ensemble. Do yourself a favor and give it a look/listen, you'll watch it over and over. I do. Cheers.
Well hell even iPhone software updates used to be paid at one point. Updates doesn’t automatically mean “free add ons”. It means they’re updating it. Changing it. Spitfire never promised anyone a free upgrade.
@@Mistygio Your defense it that it was so bad Apple, of all companies, had to change their policy to make updates be free? That's definitely quite the take. Also, BBCSO was literally sold as an all-in-one Orchestra, and they promised it as an update several times. Not as a separate product masquerading as glorified DLC.
Thanks for hammering good use of piano into us! (See what I did there?) BTW aside from doubling, contrast and such, one simple use of the piano is "as a piano" - meaning, for example, you have a quiet section with just strings and ww, and at the climax of that section you add piano doing what you'd expect, a real piano accompaniment part. Or look at Copland's Rodeo "Hoe Down" for such accompaniment-like patterns which not only sound great but serve to motivate the whole orchestra into a particular style of playing.
This is all true for modern piano, but in Mozart's day a pianoforte with strings sounded very similar to a harp with strings. And in the last days of basso continuo, they used harpsichords or pianos pretty well interchangeably AFAIK. My point is this: neither the timbre nor the tuning of a piano are set in stone. They are what the piano maker and the piano tuner make of it. All you need to do is to listen to some prepared pianos to realise how flexible the instrument can be. And that's just conventional acoustic pianos - if you add in electronics, as in digital pianos/synths, there is nothing you can't do. Why should the piano be fixed in the form it had in 1880?
What's weird is the band world seems perfectly fine with blending with the piano. There are plenty of Concert Band pieces that have a piano part, and it's not even always a big deal, mostly just playing supporting parts and chords. It doesn't have to be a big deal in the band world because as far as I can tell, it just blends. Band also more frequently uses other pitched percussion instruments as well, which probably helps. And that's just concert band. Jazz bands literally always have a piano, and it just plays chords, and blends perfectly into the background, and often gets way overplayed by the winds. It was weird to hear how orchestra just doesn't use it that much.
Since BBC SO is my best orchestra library right now, this piano was a no-brainer for me. I bought the pro version the day it came out. You’re right, it blends better with the orchestra than most. But soft is not the right word. Yes, I find it more capable of producing a range of softer timbres with musical subtlety than any other sampled piano I’ve used. But it’s equally capable of a big, bright, loud sound, especially in the higher registers, if you tweak the mic positions and the velocity curve. Whether Core provides enough of that flexibility, I don’t know. But, come on, it’s not that much more for pro.
sorta off topic but have you ever thought to talk about wind band? Piano shows up a lot more in advanced works in that idiom with stuff by maslanka and ticheli coming to mind.
I think Rimsky Korsakov in his orchestration book specifically mentions the piano in the orchestra as a uniquely Russian thing, so you might be onto something!
Great video. One question. Piano is used a lot with orchestra in context of cinematic music, but its sound is different. It's usually felt piano with high frequencies filtered out. Would it be a way to mix piano with orchestra better, or is it just another example of piano being a solo instrument?
A possible explanation for why your examples are all Russian composers might be because they were all phenomenal pianists in their own right. So they could be argued to be more equipped with handling the timbre of the piano within the context of an orchestra over other composers who perhaps don't have the virtuosic roots they have? Just a thought 🎶
yea something I think I cut from my original script was that I think every one of the composers I mentioned started with piano as their primary instrument
josé alberto pina includes piano a lot in his compositions, and it doesn't even stands out that much. As you said, it kind of sounds like a xylophone sometimes
Great techniques mentioned here, most that I wish I had used years ago. Question, how would one go about taking an existing piano solo and adding an orchestra "accompaniment" to it? Like writing a piano concerto but the piano part was finished before anything else?
Hi Ryan one of my biggest problem I am having is to arrange my instruments in the right place to the music that you write have you done a video on this or do you have a document pleeeaaase
There's a lot of non-soloitic piano writing by russian composers because russian orchestras were some of the first ones to adopt/use pianos in this way.
*Summary* 1:17 Piano rarely used due to its unique timbre that doesn't mix well with others 3 ways to use the piano 2:08 (1) Embrace the contrast 3:11 (2) Doubling (usually doubled very low or very high) 5:43 (3) Background Texture (eg. shimmering)
I guess I figured it boiled down temperament. Piano can only be in 12-tet, so everything has to harmonize to it. Whereas orchestra players tend to harmonize to true temperament of whatever key the piece is in. Hence the clash. Just my thoughts, tho. I'm just hobbyist.
I guess you can’t shape a sustained note on a piano which makes it a less versatile ensemble instrument. At the same time, a piano can be an orchestra by itself.
"The piano sound doesn't mix is a b*t claim. There are other instruments with hard attack like marimba, tubes, bells, xylophone, celeste etc. And saying it "doesn't mix well with the human voice" is weird based on the fact that most songs are written (and frequently performed with) the piano
there are so many wonderful examples of piano being used in the orchestra that are not concerti or even concertante works. I'm a little perplexed that you decided to use the Saint-Saens example (which is written for two piano soloists with a chamber group) or the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini which is a concerto in all but name. You even bring up the Shostakovich which IS a concerto, and that section is simply the orchestra doubling the piano soloist's main theme. William Schuman uses piano in his symphonies, Copland did as well, there are countless 20th century works with piano as an integral part of the texture that are in no way concerto-like. Some other posters in the responses below have mentioned other excellent examples like Martinu and even Williams.
This is a very interesting historic question, cause the harpsichord was and the piano isn't. This has to do with it being THE solo instrument in the 19th century (sorry violin but everybody knows Chopin and not that many know Paganini). Next to that its being treated as an orchestra, most prominently by Liszt ofcourse with his opera transcriptions, but no and later less Ravel. Refusing to mix is utter nonsense as the are plefora of piano trios quartets etc and lieder to show how well it mixes. Also looking from a spectral perspective you can very well mix piano, as it is very adaptable in tembre if you choose to write it like that, it has a left pedal.
That would be a good video. Not a lot of western art music pieces using guitar. Like you imply, the blending challenges are similar to piano, but with the added issue of being heard. Unless it's electric guitar which poses all sorts of additional issues. One obscure example is Virgil Thomson's score to "The Plow That Broke The Plains" which I once conducted in a concert suite. He managed to write idiomatically and made it balance pretty well, but even with a small section I had the guitarist right up front next to the concertmaster for best balance.
@@Qermaq I read somewhere that it also had to do with how guitar was played : it was a somehow cheaper instrument, often played by people with minimal or no formal music education (a surprising number of guitarists can't read a music sheet). It's not a very "noble" instrument compared to what you find in an orchestra. Of course, you'd except those reasons to not hold the test of time, if it wasn't for some similar practical issues.
@@MisterL777 All that makes sense. But the biggest reason, after all, is likely that most orchestra contractors do not have capable guitarists on call, so if the group is considering a new work requiring personnel they can't hire (or cannot afford to hire) they will pass on it.
Great stuff. For me Petrushka is THE example of how a piano can be part of an Orchestra rather than a soloist .
Ironically, Petrushka was initially intended by Stravinsky to be a piano concerto until Diaghilev commissioned another ballet from him. Rather than putting Petrushka aside and starting from scratch, he decided to incorporate those parts. And tbf, the Russian Dance and Petrushka's House are sometimes pretty soloistic.
Mahler uses the piano in the massive orchestra for his 8th symphony. He uses it mostly to play harp-like lines, often in unison with the harps, or occassionally to add color to certain lines with the celeste.
I listen to a lot of Russian operas and I noticed the same. It seems the piano is more frequently used in Russian orchestral music than in orchestral music outside of Russia (?). Good examples are probably the opera "Sadko" (Rimsky Korsakov) and "Ruslan and Ludmilla" (Glinka).
Also Rimsky Korsakov wrote in his book "Principles of Orchestration":
"The use of a piano in the orchestra (apart from pianoforte concertos) belongs almost entirely to the Russian school. The object is two-fold: the quality of tone, either alone, or combined with-32- that of the harp, is made to imitate a popular instrument, the guzli, (as in Glinka), or a soft peal of bells. When the piano forms part of an orchestra, not as a solo instrument, an upright is preferable to a grand, but today the piano is gradually being superseded by the celesta, first used by Tschaikovsky. In the celesta, small steel plates take the place of strings, and the hammers falling on them produce a delightful sound, very similar to the glockenspiel. The celesta is only found in full orchestras; when it is not available it should be replaced by an upright piano, and not the glockenspiel."
The argument that the piano doesn't blend is interesting, because technically you can say that about any section. The fact that instruments don't completely blend is what makes an orchestral texture so colourful.
A lot of modern Wind Band music has good examples of piano used very effectively in an ensemble - off the top of my head, Dance Movements by Sparke and Symphony No.3 by Barnes both blend and feature the piano in all the ways you described (as a feature, a texture, a colour, a percussion and a doubler).
I study and do orchestration for musicals, so I'm used to piano parts a lot. Granted, there's limited instrumentation in musicals but that's why it works well there.
For symphonic orchestras, it's another matter. It best serves as pitched percussion.
I love arranging for small theater orchestras. You do have to "overuse" the piano by concert-work standards, but it creates such a sound that is associated with the theater. In that situation, we often get the piano parts already and have to arrange around that, but I usually make some parts of the piano score cues, played only in rehearsal and not with the ensemble. Sometimes it's helpful to approach that like a romantic piano n-tet, and a lot of Kurt Weill's stuff has that sound to it.
Weird timing; I was discussing this topic with someone an hour or two ago. 😄One other thing: old-school film composers like Korngold often used the piano as a "rhythm section instrument", bridging the gap between the percussion and the standard orchestral instruments - a part that's more felt than heard. I think even John Williams does this occasionally (the main theme of Star Wars springs to mind). This might be a tradition from musical theatre, IDK.
Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů used the piano in a lot of his orchestral pieces like in his symphonies or even in some of his concertos (like in his oboe concerto and harpsichord concerto). What I find particularly interesting is that the piano parts are quite busy in their own right, but it still doesn’t sound like a “piano concerto in all but name”. Highly recommend to check his stuff out.
French/Swiss composer Arthur Honegger also used the piano in his 3rd and 4th symphony mostly for doubling chords and bass lines.
I was also going to mention Martinu, until I saw your comment...his music is so great; modern sounding, yet tonal on his own terms and the way he uses the piano with orchestra is a masterclass in nuance
Best example I can think of for piano as percussion is John Williams "Battle in the Snow" from Empire Strikes Back. The piano part is basically doing the job of timpani, xylophone, and snare, sometimes doubling them and sometimes on its own.
Great video, Ryan. Besides the Saint-Saens "Organ" symphony another mentioned, Copland's "Rodeo" ballet suite is full of Piano, both alone and doubling. It really adds a lot of barndance color in the Hoedown portion!
Great timing, I'm currently in the middle of writing a piece which has a piano with the orchestra and I've been trying to get more mileage out of it...
A good friend of mine played the Saint-Saens Symphony in Fribourg, and invited me to share a glass with the orchestra. Great memories, a masterful time.
Another non-russian example: Saint-Saens also uses piano in his 3rd symphony - for like 30 seconds or so of scale runs
Great example. The piano actually plays quite a bit in the second half of that symphony; the part is 7 pages of craziness. Nice use of Organ as well. 🙂(Favorite piece of mine, for sure!)
Great video! Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances (another Russian!) is a brilliant example of piano with orchestra. He blends it in so well to the rest of the tone palate it feels like it really belongs in the orchestra. I'm surprised you didn't mention Carmina Burana which calls for *2* pianos alongside its orchestra. It also calls for a bunch of other tuned percussion though so they don't feel out of place and doubling them with bells and glockenspiels creates a really nice effect.
Hindemith discusses this shortly in his book "Unterweisung im Tonsatz". He says the piano is not really mixable with the rest of the orchestra because of the tempered tuning of the piano. Most other instruments are free to adjust their pitches. He says if the piano accompanies a solo instrument, or just a few, they are likely to adjust to the piano but the more instruments are added the worse they can mix. He also says thats the reason why there a mostly piano concertos where the piano opposes the orchestra, so this difference is actually beneficial.
But what about xylophone, bells, harp, etc?
@@KingstonCzajkowski Bells and xylophone are usually used in a manner so they need to stand out a little. Harp also has a distinct timbre, but I think it is able to mix better because its volume is usually also much lower than the pianos.
@@pianopracticediary Good points!
@@AndreyRubtsovRU Its not a book on orchestration but on harmony. He just mentioned that as he was explaining the overtones.
I always use Piano in my pieces as its my main instrument and I build everything around it. I think that when its used correctly the sound complements the orchestra fine.
One work I heard recently that reinforces your 3rd point, is The Black Maskers Suite by Roger Sessions...here, it plays a lot like a harp, but not only takes advantage of the tunings you mentioned, but seems to be chosen over a harp for its increased volume within the ensemble...there is a score following video of it on YT if anyone wants to see/hear what I am talking about
And with Sessions, we finally can add an American to the list!
I've been looking forward to this one! The Saint-Saens example is so unique and otherworldly, I'm glad you included it.
I know a few specific examples from film score where it's used as another bass instrument but would probably go unnoticed unless you read the sheet music. And James Horner used four pre-recorded grand pianos in The Amazing Spider-Man. Sometimes it's an intimate solo and sometimes it's a unique layered effect of four pianos.
Great video! I once played piano on an orchestral arrangement of Piazzolla's Grand Tango. Beyond doubling the basses occasionally, my part had nothing to do with the strings, and I was mostly by myself playing textures or providing rhythmic elements. It never occurred to me why then, but it makes perfect sense now.
Interestingly, I feel like I hear a lot of Piano in Eastern Asian compositions, particularly gaming and anime. Yoko Shimomura for instance uses piano in so many of her pieces
I know the song at 6:44 as the "Carnival 1" ringtone from Nokia
Camille Saint Saens symphony 3 has a pretty cool piano+organ section along with orchestra. Short, but awesome.
It's interesting that you mention that the piano can be used like a percussion, because when I was taking a music fundamentals class, I think it was, my teacher said the same thing, because of how the keys hammer against the strings.
Yeah the non mix element is very apparent when you try to mix two music tracks of the same song but one is performed on piano and one performed on violin. So for example - on pixabay there is a great Rondo Alla Turca by Gregor Quendel. It's in both instruments and I've tried to mix them together in Audacity to imitate orchestra. Piano simply refused to cooperate. No matter what kind of effects I added it just went full resonance with other tracks. Wild thing. Then I've realised that I've never heard piano in orchestra setting and here I am! Cool video! Thank you for it :d
Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland is another good example where the piano functions in a percussion role.
Jerry Goldsmith used up to FOUR PIANOS simultaneously on his groundbreaking score for CHINATOWN ✨️🎶🎹😎👍🎹🎶✨️
The title makes me think of the saxophone :)
By the time of C.P.E Bach it was already a part of the continuo realization. You can find in Haydn, Mozart (e.g.) symphonies and concertos the figures and even in Beethovens concertos manuscripts a continuo part that the performer must play. The pianist in that day was exactly a conductor along side with the concertino. More about these we can find in the researches of the hungarian pianist Tibor Szász. 👍
2:33 Beautifully Mysterious
3:29 Rich and Decent I say...Mmhmmm
3:42 There's the caramel to ghe the chocolate ice cream
3:59 Like Ken Turner and J.D. Sumner singing on the exact same pitch
4:08 Cheesy and Childish...I love it
6:18 Oh so satisfying
6:29 Grand Design
6:45 Tense and Creepy
Rimsky-Korsakov does say in his orchestration treatise that using a piano in an orchestra is a Russian thing.
Here is the quote: "The use of a piano in the orchestra (apart from pianoforte concertos) belongs almost entirely to the Russian school" (from his "Principles of Orchestration").
Shostakovich's 5th Symphony features piano, most prominently at the start of the development of the 1st movement--elsewhere it kind of doubles other instruments.
Rocky Point Holiday's Piano/Celeste part is almost entirely doubled, I think the piano still worked successfully with the rest of the wind ensemble.
I don’t think it started becoming a member of the orchestra until the Twentieth Century, and even then it depends on the piece. The piano’s timbre is a nice addition to the orchestra’s sound for sure. 😌👍
The saxophone is an instrument that is left out of orchestra yet in my opinion has easily the best classical sounding tone out of the winds. The classical saxophone sound is like a bassoon and clarinet mixed with a golden rich tone. But I can get why it is left out. Besides the obvious answer of everyone associating saxophone with jazz and main stream things, the other reason is saxophone players aren't ready yet. Most classical saxophone pieces with orchestra are concertos. It's rare to find an orchestral piece without it being a solo for saxophone or even having a saxophone solo in it. But the reason saxophone players aren't ready is because these solos are usually made to be tough as heck, and fast with technical challenges or slow with altissimo mixed in to make it "cool". I've seldom heard a classical saxophone player play a soft lyrical piece without something in there to "impress". Why does this matter? I've heard violinist's play much easier solos for violins, yet we don't see it as boring, the violinist's let their amazing sound and interpretation make it fun to watch. The saxophone player will do some of that, but there'll be something in their to make it tough yet cool without letting their normal playing speak for itself. you know how you sometimes see a prodigy violinist at like 5 years old and soloing with orchestras? something like that isn't possible for saxophone players yet. Heck, we are impressed when we find a highschooler playing like that. But this isn't us saxophonists faults. In saxophone history, when amazing classical saxophone players wanted something to play they had to commission it. And they wanted to show off the saxophones amazingness, so that orchestral writers would catch on. So what did they do? They showed the saxophones virtuosic speed as well as altissimo. Which sort of came back to bite them. As we don't have many pieces for beginners from our older reprotoire. In my sophomore year of highschool for Solo and ensemble, I wanted to play a concerto, only to find out that there were absolutely none for my level without digging something up on jw pepper that was made more recently and less likely to be good. So I played the piece "Concertino Da Camera" which really was a big challenge. There are still pieces being commissioned for saxophone today, but our old repertoire for classical doesn't go that far back and when it did, there was not much made for beginners. It really makes me sad, because whenever I hear the Saxophone in a classical piece it always has an amazing sound, but that beautiful sound is clouded by the jazz kazzoo like tone that so many people associate saxophone with. Nice video though!
Yeah I agree. I am incorporating saxophones into my composition in a symphony orchestra. I am not giving them any featured solos at the moment. However, I was wondering if you had any ideas of how I could use saxophones effectively? Since I don't want to have them to just double another instrument's part. What is their orchestral role? What is a specific niche that they could fill?
@@ethansmusic They are great blending with the French Horns. Their role is to match the brass with the woodwinds, they bridge that gap.
one partial reason you don't see very many child prodigies of saxophones (or any wind instrument to be frank,) is that the wind instruments are all "wind" instruments, and require decently developed lungs. That doesn't mean it's not possible, but most wind players in the US start in middle school, while orchestra kids can start early elementary, due to the lack of a need for developed lungs. I know this is just picking and choosing one thing out of this paragraph, but I just kinda wanted to point it out. You don't see very many french horn child prodigies either, and french horn has some pretty easy but beautiful repertoire.
the saxophone usually not being in an orchestra is a combination of it being a relatively new instrument, but also the fact that instrument part makers then basically had an (unfortunately successful) de facto smear campaign against the sax and its creator: they were able to push alot of other musicians at the time against it, to the point some of them would threaten to leave on the spot if a saxophone was included in the orchestra, and composers and conductors weren't really willing to fight for its case. It really was that petty.
Thomas Bergersen uses it in Two Hearts very well.
Probably would've too me another 40 years to realize this on my own. Thanks for the insight 😊
Listen to Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G; a masterpiece! The piano as soloist and orchestral instrument in one ❤🎹
Vincent d'Indy used piano in his Symphony on French Mountain Air
I made a track with piano and cello. It works really well, maybe because cello is quite low in frequence. I have seen other RUclipsrs use piano in the beginning and then change it to violin when other instruments are introduced.
Thank You Very Much Sir!
🙂🙏
Certainly missing in Spitfire's 'all-in-one' BBCSO, unless you spend 20% on the expansion pack.
The organ symphony by Saint-Saens has a piano part.
Aren't there differences in tuning on the piano and orchestra? I've noticed that sometimes when the piano gets higher in its register in unison with the orchestra, it can sound kind of out of tune. I don't know if that's a tuning thing or a timbre thing, though.
That is a limitation of the equal tempered tuning of the piano yes. Well heard!
Other than the equal tempered thing, piano string being hit by hammer is not perfectly harmonic. In order to make a piano in tune to itself, it needs to slightly stretch the octave especially the lowest and highest end.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_acoustics#The_Railsback_curve
Great video, Ryan. Thanks. Oh, no one told the oboe IT had to blend. BTW, my favorite orchestra piece with piano is Georgia on my Mind, The Loft Sessions with Mario Jose (best voice in the world, fight me). When the piano enters, it feels like Hoagy just joined the ensemble. Do yourself a favor and give it a look/listen, you'll watch it over and over. I do. Cheers.
Heh. Oboe can blend a little but it's always a little pointy.
Love the video, but wish I would never have to hear about the BBCSO piano again. They promised it as an update and abruptly it's not
Well hell even iPhone software updates used to be paid at one point. Updates doesn’t automatically mean “free add ons”. It means they’re updating it. Changing it. Spitfire never promised anyone a free upgrade.
@@Mistygio Your defense it that it was so bad Apple, of all companies, had to change their policy to make updates be free? That's definitely quite the take.
Also, BBCSO was literally sold as an all-in-one Orchestra, and they promised it as an update several times. Not as a separate product masquerading as glorified DLC.
Thanks for hammering good use of piano into us! (See what I did there?)
BTW aside from doubling, contrast and such, one simple use of the piano is "as a piano" - meaning, for example, you have a quiet section with just strings and ww, and at the climax of that section you add piano doing what you'd expect, a real piano accompaniment part. Or look at Copland's Rodeo "Hoe Down" for such accompaniment-like patterns which not only sound great but serve to motivate the whole orchestra into a particular style of playing.
This is all true for modern piano, but in Mozart's day a pianoforte with strings sounded very similar to a harp with strings. And in the last days of basso continuo, they used harpsichords or pianos pretty well interchangeably AFAIK.
My point is this: neither the timbre nor the tuning of a piano are set in stone. They are what the piano maker and the piano tuner make of it. All you need to do is to listen to some prepared pianos to realise how flexible the instrument can be. And that's just conventional acoustic pianos - if you add in electronics, as in digital pianos/synths, there is nothing you can't do. Why should the piano be fixed in the form it had in 1880?
One great example is Peterson-Berger symphony 3
What's weird is the band world seems perfectly fine with blending with the piano. There are plenty of Concert Band pieces that have a piano part, and it's not even always a big deal, mostly just playing supporting parts and chords. It doesn't have to be a big deal in the band world because as far as I can tell, it just blends. Band also more frequently uses other pitched percussion instruments as well, which probably helps. And that's just concert band. Jazz bands literally always have a piano, and it just plays chords, and blends perfectly into the background, and often gets way overplayed by the winds. It was weird to hear how orchestra just doesn't use it that much.
Since BBC SO is my best orchestra library right now, this piano was a no-brainer for me. I bought the pro version the day it came out. You’re right, it blends better with the orchestra than most. But soft is not the right word. Yes, I find it more capable of producing a range of softer timbres with musical subtlety than any other sampled piano I’ve used. But it’s equally capable of a big, bright, loud sound, especially in the higher registers, if you tweak the mic positions and the velocity curve. Whether Core provides enough of that flexibility, I don’t know. But, come on, it’s not that much more for pro.
This is where I appreciate Nobuo Uematsu, Two Steps From Hell, and Joe Hisaishi. All of them really use the piano super well in their work.
Great vidéo !
sorta off topic but have you ever thought to talk about wind band? Piano shows up a lot more in advanced works in that idiom with stuff by maslanka and ticheli coming to mind.
I think Rimsky Korsakov in his orchestration book specifically mentions the piano in the orchestra as a uniquely Russian thing, so you might be onto something!
EDIT: I realised @FlorianPi just pointed this out four minutes ago
Great video. One question. Piano is used a lot with orchestra in context of cinematic music, but its sound is different. It's usually felt piano with high frequencies filtered out. Would it be a way to mix piano with orchestra better, or is it just another example of piano being a solo instrument?
A possible explanation for why your examples are all Russian composers might be because they were all phenomenal pianists in their own right. So they could be argued to be more equipped with handling the timbre of the piano within the context of an orchestra over other composers who perhaps don't have the virtuosic roots they have? Just a thought 🎶
yea something I think I cut from my original script was that I think every one of the composers I mentioned started with piano as their primary instrument
Great video. Which studio monitors do you use for writing and mixing orchestral music? Thank you!
I have Dynaudio MKII, they work great for me but I'm by no means a pro mixer
Alot of hisaishi stuff has piano with orchestra
josé alberto pina includes piano a lot in his compositions, and it doesn't even stands out that much. As you said, it kind of sounds like a xylophone sometimes
Great techniques mentioned here, most that I wish I had used years ago. Question, how would one go about taking an existing piano solo and adding an orchestra "accompaniment" to it? Like writing a piano concerto but the piano part was finished before anything else?
Focus on the ideas of contrast and support. And more than anything listen to piano concertos you like and figure out how they did it!
Just use it as percussion like John Williams, who uses it under the timpani
Hi Ryan one of my biggest problem I am having is to arrange my instruments in the right place to the music that you write have you done a video on this or do you have a document pleeeaaase
There's a lot of non-soloitic piano writing by russian composers because russian orchestras were some of the first ones to adopt/use pianos in this way.
"It refuses to mix with the human voice"
"*cough*" Shubert "*cough*"
How do you write for a harp?
afaik in game music use of piano in orchestra is a part of yoko shimomura's style that its a meme
Utah Symphony represent!
*Summary*
1:17 Piano rarely used due to its unique timbre that doesn't mix well with others
3 ways to use the piano
2:08 (1) Embrace the contrast
3:11 (2) Doubling (usually doubled very low or very high)
5:43 (3) Background Texture (eg. shimmering)
Shostakovich also uses piano in 5th and 11th symphony.
I guess I figured it boiled down temperament. Piano can only be in 12-tet, so everything has to harmonize to it. Whereas orchestra players tend to harmonize to true temperament of whatever key the piece is in. Hence the clash. Just my thoughts, tho. I'm just hobbyist.
you and nahre making a video with these pianos really makes me want to buy them lol marketing is good
I guess you can’t shape a sustained note on a piano which makes it a less versatile ensemble instrument. At the same time, a piano can be an orchestra by itself.
On the other hand the piano was (and nowadays keyboard) the main instrument for orchestral composition.
In my opinion, just ask the composers (at least the ones that aren’t dead)
"The piano sound doesn't mix is a b*t claim. There are other instruments with hard attack like marimba, tubes, bells, xylophone, celeste etc. And saying it "doesn't mix well with the human voice" is weird based on the fact that most songs are written (and frequently performed with) the piano
not mixing means not making a homogenous sound, for examples how bassoons and french horns blend well together
@@RyanLeach Well so brass and strings don't mix...
there are so many wonderful examples of piano being used in the orchestra that are not concerti or even concertante works.
I'm a little perplexed that you decided to use the Saint-Saens example (which is written for two piano soloists with a chamber group) or the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini which is a concerto in all but name. You even bring up the Shostakovich which IS a concerto, and that section is simply the orchestra doubling the piano soloist's main theme.
William Schuman uses piano in his symphonies, Copland did as well, there are countless 20th century works with piano as an integral part of the texture that are in no way concerto-like. Some other posters in the responses below have mentioned other excellent examples like Martinu and even Williams.
01.30 Tori Amos disagrees with that
Before watching the video I guess because its an orchestra itself
There are a number of very good sampled or modeled pianos available.
This is a very interesting historic question, cause the harpsichord was and the piano isn't. This has to do with it being THE solo instrument in the 19th century (sorry violin but everybody knows Chopin and not that many know Paganini). Next to that its being treated as an orchestra, most prominently by Liszt ofcourse with his opera transcriptions, but no and later less Ravel.
Refusing to mix is utter nonsense as the are plefora of piano trios quartets etc and lieder to show how well it mixes. Also looking from a spectral perspective you can very well mix piano, as it is very adaptable in tembre if you choose to write it like that, it has a left pedal.
...Saxophone too
It's also true for... guitar
Weirdly enough
That would be a good video. Not a lot of western art music pieces using guitar. Like you imply, the blending challenges are similar to piano, but with the added issue of being heard. Unless it's electric guitar which poses all sorts of additional issues.
One obscure example is Virgil Thomson's score to "The Plow That Broke The Plains" which I once conducted in a concert suite. He managed to write idiomatically and made it balance pretty well, but even with a small section I had the guitarist right up front next to the concertmaster for best balance.
@@Qermaq I read somewhere that it also had to do with how guitar was played : it was a somehow cheaper instrument, often played by people with minimal or no formal music education (a surprising number of guitarists can't read a music sheet). It's not a very "noble" instrument compared to what you find in an orchestra. Of course, you'd except those reasons to not hold the test of time, if it wasn't for some similar practical issues.
@@MisterL777 All that makes sense. But the biggest reason, after all, is likely that most orchestra contractors do not have capable guitarists on call, so if the group is considering a new work requiring personnel they can't hire (or cannot afford to hire) they will pass on it.
plin plin plon