The Transcribers Art - #40

Richard Yates
Pavane, Op. 50 by Gabriel Faur

The guitar is a small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a different color, a different
voice. Andrs Segovia
Perhaps Segovia was the first to make this observation, or maybe it was Hector Berlioz
also a guitarist. Regardless of the attribution, it is true that the variations in tonal color of which
the guitar is capable are a substantial source of its charm and versatility. But does that mean
that the guitar is suited for playing music written for orchestra? Well, there is that qualifying
word small in the Segovia quotation and, of course, there lies the difficulty: Orchestras, even
small ones, are much larger than guitarsand the sound they can producein nearly any
dimension you care to measure. However, this has not deterred all guitarists. The performances
of orchestral music by such players as Kazuhito Yamashita and, more recently, Jorge Caballero
are astonishing. But these Olympian accomplishments do more to impress us with their
superhuman technique than to assure us that playing orchestral music on the guitar is feasible
for the average player. Indeed, to hear Yamashitas Beethoven or Caballeros Dvorak can be
simply discouraging for transcribers looking to expand the guitars repertoire.
And yet close examination of some orchestral scores can reveal a simpler compositional
structure than is apparent from the sound that is produced. After all, in the period of harmonic
common practice orchestra composers put together their progressions one triad at a time just as
the guitar composers did. And so, barring dense polyphony for which we have too few fingers
and strings, we can find reasonable pieces for transcription. In searching this far afield, some
will be less comfortable with the term transcription than with arrangement but, in any
event, the boundaries of these terms are fuzzy and a practical and musical result is what is most
important.
I recently heard Gabriel Faurs Pavane in F sharp minor, Op. 50 performed by a brass
orchestra at a concert to raise money for the victims of last springs earthquake in China. Jay
Chen, of Willamette University, recruited and organized members of the Columbia Symphony,
Portland Opera, Oregon Symphony, Portland Ballet and regional universities. The success of
that arrangement and performance prompted me to look at the score to see if a guitar version
were possible.
The Pavane was written for a series of light summer concerts in 1887. Happily for the
transcriber, it employs a smallish orchestra consisting of strings plus pairs of flutes, oboes,
clarinets, bassoons and horns, although Faur added a chorus shortly before the first
performance. The versions with and without chorus have both been performed regularly ever
since. Faur had a strong ambivalence about the orchestra. He wrote only a handful of works
for large ensembles and abandoned or destroyed several orchestral scores, yet he also
composed music for immense ensemblesPromthe is scored for three wind bands, 100
strings, 12 harps, and choirs. His biographer, Jean-Michel Nectoux wrote, He had a horror of
vivid colours and effects, and showed little interest in combinations of tone-colours, which he
thought were too commonly a form of self-indulgence and a disguise for the absence of ideas
and Faurs lack of interest in the orchestra is sometimes criticized as a weakness

In this context, the Pavane is interesting because it seems to be a deliberate exercise in

orchestral color, much as Ravels Bolero was. The main melody repeats in turn on different
instruments or their combinations. This structure presents both the opportunity and the
challenge for a guitar transcription. The guitar, uniquely among instruments, can color these
repetitions with a range of timbres, articulations and dynamics and, in so doing, sustain interest
over the extended form. I do not recommend trying to imitate the actual original instruments
but, rather, to experiment with different sounds to find the ones that best fit the music, the
instrument, and the player.
The size of the original ensemble is daunting as you can see in Figure 1. Yet, after sorting
through the maze of clefs and transposing instruments, a basic structure is revealed that is
within the reach of the guitar. Figure 2 shows all of the notes of the original score combined
onto only four staves. The octave duplications are then eliminated and a more felicitous key
chosen. The line that combines the first violins and the horns is just a bit more than can be
managed on the guitar and, because it has no essential harmonic tones not present in other
voices, it was omitted. The result is shown in Figure 3not quite ready for the guitar but
certainly very close. The measures in these examples are the densest of the whole piece and
were chosen to show how much reduction is both possible and necessary. A similar procedure
was used throughout the transcription.

Flutes, Clarinets,
Bassoons, Voices

Violins II,
Violas

Cellos,
Contra-basses

Violins I,
Horns

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Figure 2

Reduction

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Figure 3

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Figure 1

A few details and suggestions follow:

Measure 1: I kept the explicit pattern of a quarter note plus a quarter rest in the bass and
suggest that these rests be observed literally rather than allowing the bass notes to ring through.
Later in the piece I changed the line to half notes for textural variety and to simplify fingering.
Measure 20: This is the first appearance of triplet eighth notes in the melody against regular
eighth notes in the middle voice. While these can be awkward for players unfamiliar with
them, there are a couple of ways to proceed. One is to break the quarter note beat down into six
sixteenths and practice it slowly until the feel for it is established. A second method is to focus
on the melody, play the triplet in correct time, and then simply insert the second eighth note of
the bass line in between the second and third triplet eighth notes in the melody. In practice it
will fall in about the right spot, and familiarity will help smooth it out.

Measure 25: I included a suggested performance of the trill that gradually increases the speed
of its alternations. Many other methods are possible including an unmeasured cross-string trill
for those players with sufficient technique. In the original score this trill extended over two
measures with the same harmonic underpinning but was too difficult to sustain on the guitar.
Notice that the trill in measure 62 is the same although the bass line is slightly different.
Measure 34: In order to create more variety in the return of the main melody, I thickened the
middle voice to include notes on each eighth beat. This substitutes a textural variation for the
orchestration. It sounds best if the middle voicewhich at this point is new to the listeneris
played out more loudly than the upper melodywhich is by now familiar.
Measure 42: This section is a series of three repetitions of a four measure contrapuntal phrase
each a whole step lower than the previous one. The way in which Faur links these together is
typical of his use of rapid modulation. In the original score the first phrase is repeated. Without
the resources of the orchestra this seemed too static and so I shortened it by deleting the
repetition.
Measure 63: Faur added variety here with a new accompanying line assigned to the cellos. In
the guitar transcription it weaves between the melody and the quarter note basses. As in the
section at measure 34, playing this voice prominently over the melody adds to the interest.
If you have examples or suggestions for our small orchestra please send them to:
Richard Yates
richard@yatesguitar.com
http://www.yatesguitar.com

Pavane
Transcribed for guitar
by Richard Yates

Gabriel Faur
(1845-1924)

Andante molto moderato

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