Galop!: Virtuosic Orchestral Transcriptions
Stanhope is one of the very few Australian composers who takes on the challenge of transcribing piano works for orchestra. Composers once did this themselves to open other performing paths for popular pieces. Imagination, craft and creativity make the results thrilling.
Franz Liszt composer
Leopold Godowsky composer
Sergei Rachmaninoff composer
David Stanhope orchestral transcriptions
This is a serious orchestral “show-off” disc: virtuoso transcriptions that put brilliant piano writing into full orchestral colour.
The major works were originally written for piano or two pianos. The Liszt and Godowsky pieces are rarely heard because of their extreme difficulty, while the Rachmaninoff (although well-known) may have been intended as a future orchestral work. My orchestral transcriptions are intended to shed light on brilliant or beautiful music that is either neglected or shows the possible intent of the composer. The two short pieces of mine attached as encores were originally written for the Asian Games of 2006.
Artists
David Stanhope and his Orchestra
David Stanhope and his Orchestra is the digital orchestra the Australian composer and conductor uses to realise full orchestral scores in the studio. It brings unperformed concertos and neglected virtuoso piano works into recorded form.
David Stanhope
David Stanhope is an Australian conductor, composer and pianist whose career also takes in horn and bass trombone. He has led opera, ballet, film scores and orchestras across Australia, and is widely known for his wind-band and brass writing.

Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt (1811–1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic era. His vast output reshaped piano technique, invented the symphonic poem and pushed harmony toward the twentieth century.

Leopold Godowsky
Godowsky's Studies on Chopin's Études turn already demanding pieces into labyrinths of counterpoint, left-hand bravura and interlocking textures. His Passacaglia and Schubert song paraphrases share the same dense, glittering pianism.

Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music.
Tracks
Franz Liszt
— Galop in A Minor
Leopold Godowsky
— Mouvement Mélancolique
— Passacaglia
Sergei Rachmaninoff
— Suite No. 2, Op. 17
David Stanhope
— The Promenade March
— Grand Fanfare
Performer
- David Stanhope and his Orchestra · orchestra
Where to listen
Galop!: Virtuosic Orchestral Transcriptions is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.
Product details
- Catalogue number
- TP265
- Label
- Tall Poppies
- Category
- Great Classics
- Genres
- Orchestral & Concerto, Romantic & Impressionist
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