QUOTE(Max Von Mayerling @ Jan 1 2010, 11:22 AM)
Can anyone help me out on the difference (if any) between an Orchestration and an Arrangement. Does an arranger distribute musical lines to instruments - lines that the composer wrote? To what extent is the Orchestrator also a substantial composer of motifs between the melody line. Begs the question - which acclaimed composers of musicals are chiefly tunesmiths/melody writers? Wow, that's enough questions - but I've always wondered....
The simple answer is that there isn't a simple answer, Max. First, the words
arrangement and
orchestration and
arranger and
orchestrator are used interchangeably and without any precise definition, although definitions exist they are not always followed so nothing can be assumed by the use of one word rather than the other.
Also, the actual responsibilities of Music Arranger vary depending on area (film, tv, musicals, ballet, pop, etc) and from project to project.
A few composers of stage shows have orchestrated their music themselves, most notably Kurt Weill, but this is the exception rather than the norm - on the first production of a new piece composers generally need to be in the rehearsal room making the changes required by the director/producer. Some composers produce very complete piano parts that include most of the musical material for the orchestra (riffs, fills, countermelodies etc) and leave very little for the orchestrator to invent apart from which instruments do what and how the instrumental parts are voiced, how they fit together. At the other extreme some composers can't "write" music at all so an
amanuensis is required to turn their singing or piano or guitar playing into musical notation. This
amanuensis is sometimes also the arranger/orchestrator, and their job sometimes involves supplying things as basic as the chords. Often the composer writes the songs but the arranger or Musical Director has to provide all the incidental music {scene change, music under dialogue etc). It was very common in the 1950's to 1970's to have a Dance Arranger who would produce all the music for the dance routines in collaboration with the choreographer. They are still used now, but much less than before.
There are some famous contributions by orchestrators including the falling scale in the accompaniment to "People Will Say We're In Love" added by Robert Russell Bennett and the quote from Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier in "A Weekend In The Country" added by Jonathan Tunick. Tunick is also responsible for the marvellous rising scale in the accompaniment to the second verse of "Losing My Mind". These examples obviously pleased Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim, respectively, but I suppose we don't hear about the instances where an orchestrator has added something that the composer didn't like and insisted was removed.
If composers have had in-depth musical training at university or conservatoire then it is likely that they will compose most of what is necessary for the show; if they have had less traditional training then it is likely they will leave more for others to supply. Some composers would be unhappy at the thought of any discussion of how much of their shows was actually written by others. Other composers have left all their papers to National libraries so that scholars can study them and add factual research to idle conjecture. Quite often the truth dies with the orchestrator. Music copyists have their part to play in the process too.
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