Wednesday, June 03, 2009

Chausson Poème, Revised

Few orchestral reductions have created such consternation in the ranks of pianists as Chausson's Poème. The traditionally used (and flawed) Breitkopf und Härtel reduction requires significant modification and reworking in order to create a playable whole. That is about to end, with the release of a new piano reduction of the Poème from Dr. Allison Gagnon, currently serving as Director of the Collaborative Piano Program at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. More about the edition:
Allison Gagnon's new piano reduction of the Poeme, op. 25 for Violin and Orchestra by Ernest Chausson is now available. This definitive edition has been prepared in collaboration with violinist Stephen Shipps (University of Michigan) and Encore Music Publishers. It is the first published version of the piece to provide an accurate, playable and effective piano rendition of the orchestral score.
The STRStudies website contains a fascinating article by Allison about the sources and method used to prepare the reduction, as well as a link for buying the score online.

(Thanks, Allison!)

2 comments:

  1. Hi Chris! Would you be able to change the link for this?
    It's now (has been for a little while...my oversight):
    http://www.encoremupub.com/chausson-poeme/
    Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Done! Thanks for the heads-up, Allison

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