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I've mentioned here before my preference for the strings and piano over the other instruments in an orchestra.

I'm curious how many of the greatest works would sound with only these instruments. I know this sounds odd or even silly to many of you, but I'm still curious.

I also know that many of these pieces simply would not be what they are without many of the 'other' instruments. And, too, that even I would consider the other instruments essential for many of these pieces.

Bech

If you already know the answer, there's little need for this thread! (ok.. kidding here).

* Nikolas puts the flame suite on

The works that would work best in such a 'device' would be those who don't really work in the original way. The only works I would imagine working like that would be the Chopin piano concertos. I find them to be lacking in terms of orchestral writing. Perhaps by choice, perhaps not, but I don't think the works would really suffer from taking out the rest of the instruments (which either way are not really playing all that much). The strings in these works are really the backbones of it all...

And I can't think of any other work really. I've heard transcriptions from string quartet to string orchestra, and frankly it simply sounded BAD! ... In general I'd say that it's safe to trust the composers intentions.