This is a transcription of the complete Pictures at an Exhibition for double reed choir. It is all in the original keys and based on the well-known Ravel orchestration, which is quite difficult. As a result, this arrangement is even more challenging. It is designed with at least 2 players per part in mind, and all of the oboe and bassoon parts are divisi throughout. The attached MP3 recordings are multi-track recordings of me playing all the parts. This was, by far, the most daunting recording I have put together for any of my arrangements, and I apologize for any minor imperfections in timing or pitch. In many places, this really stretched the limits of what I am capable of on bassoon.

Faced with trying to recreate the uniqueness of Ravel’s use of the solo Alto Saxophone, I decided to give that part to a solo Oboe d’Amore. It’s quite distinct, and conveniently just exactly fits into the range of the instrument. Many groups won’t have access to a d’amore, though, so I have included an alternate part for English Horn. Using it does make this the only movement that requires 2 English Horns, however.

This is also the movement where I discovered that the cheap recording equipment I’m using currently doesn’t like long sustained tones, and there are a lot of them in this movement. For whatever reason, there’s a lot of distortion on them in the MP3, and I apologize for not being able to figure out how to correct that.