Passepied by Debussy - Punch Brothers transcription

[Martin Jonas]

Not sure whether this has been posted on the Cafe before -- I've just come across a full transcription of the Punch Brothers arrangement of Debussy's Passepied, from their album The Phosphorescent Blues. Not my work, just a random web find.

The transcription is at Musescore, with full instrumental parts for mandolin, two violins, cello and double bass:

https://musescore.com/user/2933161/scores/1441841

As it's on Musescore, you can download and edit the score, e.g. to change instrumentation or clefs.

The Punch Brothers album track is also on Youtube: Link

I would love to say that I'm making my own recording, but there is no way I can play these parts at anything above half the intended tempo so no point in a home recording. One for more ambitious ensembles!

Martin

[Martin Jonas]

I've just come across a very nice live video of a Punch Brothers performance of the piece as well:



Contrary to how the parts are labelled in the arrangement I've linked, they play the "cello" part on guitar and the "second violin" part on banjo, to make a classic five-piece bluegrass band line-up (mandolin, fiddle, guitar, banjo, double bass). To generate a guitar part, just change the clef of the cello part to octave treble clef in Musescore.

Martin

[JH Murray]

A very carefully orchestrated 'spontaneous' event.