Gaston Borch composed "Triste Convoi" (Melancholy Procession) in 1923. It's a powerful late romantic piece, published as #26 in Hawke's Photo Play series -- meaning it was intended for performance by a theater orchestra as accompaniment for a silent film.

This all-new recording was produced by @MLucas using OMR, starting out with scans of the original pit orchestra sheet music. My original production followed the composition structure resulting in a recording over thirteen minutes in duration. While that might be useful for a silent film, it seemed excessive for this medium, so for SoundCloud I've carefully edited the piece to a bit over six minutes. Public Resource will post the full length version on the Internet Archive at a later time. The percussion parts were re-assigned to a collection of asian and middle-eastern percussion instruments.

Other Recordings of this composition: Phillip Sear posted his piano performance of this piece on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOQa67QzMTQ

Cover art by MLucas using "Antwerp refugees fleeing to Holland" from 1914 by Bain News Service, hosted by the Library of Congress. LCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/2014703585

Public Domain, No Rights Reserved.

Triste Convoi (Gaston Borch)

"Sérénade Grotesque" was composed in 1920 by Gaston Borch (French 1871-1926). Borch was a prolific photoplay music composer. 

When we think of a serenade, we usually think of a gentleman playing a sensitive piece of music on a guitar or lute, and perhaps also singing, outside a lady's window at night to express his affections and perhaps as a demonstration of his artistic side and skillfulness.

On the other hand, 'grotesque' suggests something freakish, ugly, or at least weird. Did Borch intend that the serenade was performed by someone (or someTHING) grotesque? Or is it the music itself that is strange, mysterious, and possibly just a bit hideous? The printed music provides no clue.

This all-new recording of Borch's Sérénade Grotesque was produced by @MLucas using OMR in late 2024. The OMR process began with digital scans of the original theater orchestra sheet music. The scans were then converted into a computer readable form -- music xml -- using SoundSlice and assembled into a score in a professional music notation program. The resulting score was then exported as music xml and as MIDI. Then in Logic Pro, the MIDI score was re-assembled and each part was assigned sampled orchestral instruments. The resulting recording generally follows the original scanned music, but some careful editing is required to achieve a quality audio product.

We found no other recordings of this piece. Note however, that other composers wrote unrelated pieces called "Sérénade Grotesque", perhaps most notably one composed by French impressionist Maurice Ravel in 1893.

Cover by MLucas using (with permission) a photograph by his sister, Donna Lucas.

Public Domain, No Rights Reserved.

Sérénade Grotesque (Gaston Borch)

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New tracks tagged #Borch