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There was a time that I thought I was going to be a band director when I grew up. Because I was an honors student at the time, I knew I had an honors project to complete, and I thought that that project would be re-scoring a piece of music I loved for a concert band, taking it from the expanded rock-band setup of the original to flute; first and second clarinets; bass clarinet; alto, tenor, and baritone saxes; first and second trumpets; French horn; first and second trombones; euphonium; tuba; and percussion. It did not work out; I gave up on trying to be a band director, and the proposed project fell away. But the idea that I might re-score something for a different band setup has never really left me; I still return to it at odd intervals, although with diminishing skill and ready knowledge. I've been away from the formal study of music for too long to have that particular ability anymore--if ever I had it to begin with.
Still, the thought of rendering a song into a different arrangement attracts. Others have made such arrangements any number of times, setting pieces for piano that had been orchestral--or vice-versa. Many bleacher tunes, both those I recall from my high school days and those played now, have their origins not in marching bands but in more popular groups. Many concert band pieces do, as well, or in works for strings or voices alone. So I would not be in small company did I do something like arrange, say, Elgar's Enigma Variations (or a part of them) for a saxophone choir or Holst's Second Suite in F for a big-band setup. Such things exceed my skill at the moment, I am sure, but they are fun exercises to think on, from time to time.
Several reasons to conduct such exercises present themselves. One of them, at least, is a thing with which I am familiar from doing the scholarly work I still do, in which I look at contemporary pieces for how they mis/use the medieval; rearranging older pieces for different setups helps to highlight various parts of those pieces, aiding in the development of new understandings of them and leading listeners to the source materials. That added attention helps to maintain and transmit the materials, and, as someone who is invested in keeping memories of things alive, such is a desirable outcome for me.
Another, and perhaps more important, is that working as closely with a piece of music as has to be done to carry out a rearrangement is something that develops great familiarity with it. If the process is anything like studying a piece of writing at great length, it is one that leads not only to familiarity and understanding, but also appreciation. I know that my own work with Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur has led me to a greater love of the text--not one that ignores the problems with it (there are many), but one that looks to the great good in it; the research I've done on other writers and their works have functioned similarly. I have to think that delving into a piece of music in such a way would have a similar outcome, increasing love for the piece--and more such is needed, to be sure.