did you check out Emerson's piano concerto? While not "original" in any way,
it sounds like the work of a gifted pupil of Tschaikowsky...
** naw. to be honest i lost all interest in the elp thing after seeing them live. a dreadful and self-indulgent show (didn't help that mahavishnu orch. opened for them). closed mind or disinterest - - call it either way. but it really wasn't a slam on elp in any event, i quite liked their first 3-4 records - - even pictures (and it took me a while to figure out who those other guys who wrote the music were).
p.p.s.: regarding your joke: I know quite a lot of so-called "educated"
people (persons with a chair in a history of culture et al.) who think that
"Pictures" was originally a composition for orchestra...
** oh yes . . . and then there's the fact that ravel's is only one of at least two orchestrations. (have you ever heard the other one? odd experience: sounds like you expect and then certain voicings are different, slight variations in orchestration in brass chords and then big differences in other places. i think it doesn't have quite the same resonance as ravel's, but then maybe i'm just used to it and can't get it out of my head enough to deal with the other guy's - - sorry, his name escapes me.)
stig