Re: Audition Practicing Before Excerpts Are Announced

[Saul Davis Zlatkovski]

Hopefully, your teacher has kept track of what the standard excerpts are that are commonly asked for, and yes, you do learn all of them well enough to be able to work them up quickly. Each audition tends to have at least one wild card thrown in.

Here, off the top of my head, are the common excerpts from auditions in the 1980s and 90s:

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings Percussion Celesta, Bluebeard’s Castle, Violin Concerto no. 1.

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique (both parts sometimes), Harold in Italy (sometimes), Invitation to the Dance; his parts are also good for practicing sight-reading.

Britten: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra (always), Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes.

Debussy: La Mer, Prelude de l’Apres-Midi d’un Faune, Nocturnes, Iberia.

Faure: Pelleas et Melisande Sicilienne.

Ginastera: Variaciones Concertantes, Pampeana no. 3

Hanson: Romantic Symphony

Mahler: anything

Moussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

Prokofiev: Violin Concerto

Ravel: anything, esp. Tzigane, Rhapsodie Espagnol, Ma Mere l’Oye

Rimsky-Korsakov: always Capriccio Espagnol, Scheherazade

Sibelius: Symphony no. 1

Strauss: Don Juan, Death and Transfiguration, Ein Heldenleben, Salome’s Dance.

Tchaikovsky: Nutcracker, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet,

Wagner: anything, especially Liebestod, and Magic Fire Music.

If it is an opera or ballet orchestra, then there is special repertoire.

A festival will also have special repertoire.

There is often sightreading. That may mean a part that has only SOME of the pedals marked.

They also commonly ask for concerti: Debussy Danses, Handel Concerto, Ravel Introduction and Allegro, and/or Mozart Flute-Harp Concerto, sometimes Boieldieu.

You learn a lot from the auditions you don’t win. Don’t try to guess what they are looking for, make music.

They often choose music from the upcoming season.