page_title: Le Tombeau de Couperin
section_title: Orchestrations and transcriptions
hierarchical_section_title: Le Tombeau de Couperin / Orchestrations and transcriptions
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Lyons-la-Forêt, Eure, Normandie, France. English: Translation of the inscription: Familiar with Lyons and its forest, Maurice Ravel composed in this house "Le Tombeau de Couperin" (1917) and orchestrated here the "Pictures at an Exhibition" suite (1922).
context_page_description: Le Tombeau de Couperin is a suite for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, composed between 1914 and 1917. The piece is in six movements, based on those of a traditional Baroque suite. Each movement is dedicated to the memory of a friend of the composer who had died fighting in World War I. Ravel also produced an orchestral version of the work in 1919, although this omitted two of the original movements.
context_section_description: In 1919 Ravel orchestrated four movements of the work (Prélude, Forlane, Menuet and Rigaudon); this version was premiered in February 1920 by Rhené-Baton and the Pasdeloup Orchestra, and has remained one of his more popular works. The orchestral version clarifies the harmonic language of the suite and brings sharpness to its classical dance rhythms. Among the demands it places on the orchestra is the requirement for an oboe soloist of virtuosic skill, as the oboist takes the melody in the Prélude and the Menuet, as well as for the pastoral C minor section of the Rigaudon, where it is accompanied by guitar-like pizzicati.
  The orchestrated version is scored for two flutes (one doubling piccolo), two oboes (one doubling cor anglais), two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, trumpet, harp, and strings.
  Only a few years after Ravel's own orchestration, Lucien Garban (working under the pseudonym of Roger Branga) produced a version of the piece for 'small orchestra' with a piano-conductor, consisting of the Prélude, Menuet and Rigaudon. He had previously transcribed the full suite for piano four hands in 1919.
  Several other composers have since created orchestrations of those two movements which Ravel omitted, the Fugue and the Toccata. David Diamond orchestrated the second movement Fugue, while the Hungarian pianist and conductor Zoltán Kocsis produced his own version of both the Fugue and the Toccata. However, here, the Toccata, scored for a very large orchestra, goes far beyond the limits of Ravel's own, small orchestra, and the Fugue is set for winds only. Another instrumentation of Fugue and Toccata by pianist Michael Round was recorded by Vladimir Ashkenazy (Exton, 2003): the score is published (as two separate titles, 'Fugue' and 'Toccata') by Edwin F. Kalmus. Round's version of the Toccata adds percussion, requiring up to five players. Kalmus omitted the percussion parts from the published score so as to exactly match the orchestration of the rest of the suite, but these parts are available separately, directly from the orchestrator. In 2013 the British composer Kenneth Hesketh orchestrated the Fugue and Toccata for the exact orchestration of the original four-movement orchestral suite. The first performance was given by the Goettingen Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph-Mathias Mueller. The scores are available from Schott Music, London. 
  Four movements (Prélude, Fugue, Menuet, and Rigaudon) have been arranged for wind quintet by American horn player Mason Jones (1919–2009). Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen has also transcribed four movements for wind quintet, and further, American composer Gunther Schuller has made a wind-quintet arrangement.
  In 2013, Trevor P. Wagler re-arranged the orchestral version of four movements (Prélude, Forlane, Menuet, and Rigaudon) down to a quintet (ob/cl/vn/vcl/pft), premiered at Wilfrid Laurier University.
  The four orchestral movements (Prélude, Fugue, Menuet and Rigaudon) were arranged by Elena González Arias (Adliswil: Ed.Kunzelmann, 2014) for oboe and piano in 2014.
caption: The house in Lyons-la-Forêt where Ravel composed Le Tombeau de Couperin
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