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In music, a reduction is an arrangement or transcription of an existing sheet music or composition in which complexity is lessened to make musical analysis, performance, or practice easier or clearer; the number of parts may be reduced or rhythm may be simplified, such as through the use of .
During opera rehearsals, a répétiteur (piano player) will typically read from a piano reduction of the opera. When a choir is learning a work scored for choir and full orchestra, the initial rehearsals will usually be done with a pianist playing a piano reduction of the orchestra part. Before the advent of the phonograph, arrangements of orchestral works for solo piano or piano four hands were in common use for enjoyment at home.
A reduction for a smaller orchestra or chamber ensemble may be used when not enough players are available, when a venue is too small to accommodate the full orchestra, to accompany less powerful voices, or to save money by hiring fewer players.
The most notable example is Franz Liszt's transcriptions for solo piano of Ludwig van Beethoven's symphonies.
According to Arnold Schoenberg, a piano reduction should "only be like the view of a sculpture from one viewpoint", and he advises that timbre and thickness should largely be ignored, since "the attempt to make a useful object equally usable for a variety of purposes is usually the way to spoil it completely".
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