Orchestration

I'm working with Jin-Dong Cai to learn more about orchestration and conducting. One of our first exercises was to orchestrate a piano piece. I chose Debussy's Canope from his second book of preludes. I believe Debussy had a miniature Egyptian burial doll on his desk, the story goes.

I looked at this piece with George Barth and made the argument (convincing or not) that the structure was built on a pentatonic key which defines the melodic line in the opening. The harmonic progression follows this line throughout, moving more or less up and down by fifth.

Here I include an mp3/midi of the orchestration version, as well as my full orchestration score. If your orchestra would like to perform it, send me a note and I'll forward all parts.

Debussy's Canope: Prelude #10, Book II
Orchestration Score of Canope