PART II
How the Orchestra is Used
VI
General Principles
The orchestra is an instrument, and composers have developed methods of writing for it. The fundamental principles of these methods constitute that branch of musical art called orchestration. It is not the purpose of the present volume to teach that branch; but it is entirely within its province to point out to the reader how composers make use of their majestic and many-voiced instrument. In compass and power alone it surpasses all other instruments. The compass of the modern orchestra is enormous. It extends from grave, low sounds to those of such acute pitch that the ear does not relish them if uttered loudly. The extreme normal compass is shown by the following illustration:
Mr. Corder, in his “Modern Orchestra and How to Write for It,” gives this interesting dynamic scale: “Suppose the degrees of sound-intensity to range from 1 (in ppp) to 12 (in fff); then one might say roughly that
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Violins have a range | ||||||||||||
| of from | ppp | — | mp | — | — | — | mf | — | — | fff | — | — |
| The other strings | ppp | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | fff | — | — | — |
| Clarinets on high notes | — | — | ppp | — | — | — | — | fff | — | — | — | — |
| Clarinets low, flutes, | ||||||||||||
| oboes, and bassoons | — | — | ppp | — | — | — | fff | — | — | — | — | — |
| Horns | — | ppp | — | — | — | — | — | — | fff | — | — | — |
| Trumpets, trombones, | ||||||||||||
| and drums | ppp | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | fff |
| Harps | — | — | ppp | — | — | fff | — | — | — | — | — | — |
I should modify this by shifting the pianissimo of low clarinet tones back to 2, that of drums forward to 2, and that of trumpets and trombones to 4.
Now, if there were nothing else to be considered, a composer would have to work according to some system in using the compass and force of his orchestra. What is known in regard to the method of doing so is the result of many long years of experiment by the early writers. In a general way, I may say that composers in writing a passage for the entire orchestra can give the melody to all the soprano instruments, the alto to all that have an alto compass, the tenor to all the tenors, and the bass to all the basses. For example—flutes, clarinets, oboes, and violins may utter a melody in unison, while the remaining instruments supply the accompaniment. But it is rare that a composer writes in only four parts for orchestra. He usually spreads his chords out to six or eight parts, thus gaining in richness and sonority of tone.
But compass and power are not all the composer must consider. He has at his command a great variety of tonal qualities. We have already seen how the characteristics of certain instruments, singing as solo voices, are peculiarly suited to the embodiment of special kinds of music. Now the writer for orchestra must study the result of every possible combination of all or any of the instruments to the end that he may produce just the desired tone, and that he may never produce anything different from that which he wishes. The tonal tints of a modern orchestra are the richest pigments of the musician’s palette, and he must know how to use them either singly or combined, just as the painter knows how to use his colors. The simplest way in which I can point out the peculiarities of the composer’s work is by discussing separately the uses of the different choirs.
The principal requirements of good orchestration are solidity, balance of tone, contrast, and variety. Solidity is obtained by a proper dispersal of the harmony, so that certain notes in the chords do not stand out too prominently at the expense of others. The composer must not only be a master of harmony, but he must have the true harmonic feeling. He must have that almost instinctive grasp of the proportions of chords which can come only from real musical gifts cultivated by long familiarity with modern music. This feeling is not necessarily accompanied by restlessness and complexity of harmony. The harmonic effect of a simple diatonic Bach chorale is infinitely grander than the most intricate chromatic convolutions of a Charbrier overture. The true harmonic feeling is one that always produces artistic proportions, and these will permeate the instrumentation and produce solidity, provided the composer has sufficient intimacy with the instruments to prevent him from giving them the wrong notes. The foundation of solidity in orchestration is good writing for the strings. Their part of the score must always be planned with complete harmonic skill, not only because they are the main prop of the whole instrumental body, but because the man who cannot write well for strings will inevitably fail in handling wood and brass.
Solidity in tutti passages merges itself in balance of tone. This depends also upon a proper dispersal of the harmony and on a knowledge of the relative power of the instruments of the three choirs. For instance, it is not possible to play wood as softly as strings. Consequently, in a pianissimo the composer must know just what wood instruments to use and what parts of the chord to give them, lest he overbalance his strings. Solidity requires great skill in writing the middle voices. If they are too strong, the orchestration is muddy; if they are too weak, it is thin, and the orchestra, as the saying goes, is “all top and bottom.”
Contrast is necessary in order that monotony of color may be avoided. It is obtained by using the three choirs of the orchestra separately, by employing any subdivision of each, or using simultaneously subdivisions of two, and so on. Variety is produced by mixing the tints. For example, a passage played by a flute alone changes color when an oboe sings in unison with the flute. Another tint results when a clarinet is added. It is not necessary to pursue this topic further than to say that the composer must know what tints will mix well to produce a new one.
VII
The Strings
Since the foundation of good orchestration is skilful writing for the strings, it is natural to consider that department first. The strings, as we shall see, came to their proper place in the orchestra in the works of the operatic composers. In Cavalli’s “Giasone” (1649) we find vocal parts accompanied in something like the Handelian style by two violins and a bass. About twenty-five years later we find the string quartet, two violins, viola, and bass, established by Alessandro Scarlatti, founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. Since that time the strings have been the foundation of the orchestra, and although methods of writing for them have greatly changed, the fundamental principles remain the same.
The general disposition of the strings may be fairly expressed by the formula already given, but worth repeating here: First violins equal sopranos, second violins equal altos, violas equal tenors, ’cellos equal barytones, and double-basses equal basses. In certain circumstances this disposition is altered, because the compass of violas makes it possible for them to sing soprano music, though with a distinctly individual tone, while the ’cello can cover the ordinary range of an entire quartet. The individuality of tone possessed by the various stringed instruments is tolerably well known, except in the case of the viola. It is to its beautiful quality of tone that it owes its chief value. Gloomy, sombre, and even foreboding in the lower register, in its upper range it becomes mellow, tender, pathetic, and inexpressibly winning. No wonder that Berlioz selected it for the voice of the melancholy Childe Harold, or that Brahms made it play such important parts in his quartets. Its dramatic power is now universally recognized by composers, and from the position of a misunderstood and ignored member of the string quintet, it is rapidly advancing to the equally undesirable condition of being severely overworked.
It is a curious fact, however, that many of the younger composers show a singular want of skill in using the viola, and it is this which often upsets the balance of their orchestration. Perhaps this is due in some measure to the Brahms cult. Brahms’s orchestration is not a good model. His middle parts are almost always written too low or too heavily, and hence his instrumentation is muddy. It depends upon what a man is writing. If he is writing a symphony in the classic style, let him follow as closely as possible the methods of Beethoven. If he wishes to be more modern—and it is natural that he should—let him study Dvorák, whose instrumentation is almost perfect. Tschaikowsky’s is, too, but the reader should remember that most of his works are sombre in thought, and that hence the instrumental style will not be suitable to light themes. Liszt and Rubinstein are good models. For thick, luscious coloring there is nothing better than Rubinstein’s “Antony and Cleopatra” overture, and I can recommend also a careful study of Goldmark’s overtures. Wagner, of course, is full of instruction, but a composer must know a good deal before he can discriminate sufficiently to get any benefit from Wagner. But to return to the viola.
The placing of the viola part is of the greatest importance in the color of the strings. For instance, in the slow movement of the famous piano concerto in E flat, called the “Emperor,” Beethoven mutes his violins, but not his violas, and writes the basses pizzicati, thus:
The individuality and penetrating quality of the viola tone brings it out with marked effect in this passage, and Beethoven knew that so well that in the third measure he kept his second violins down and gave the violas the real alto part, because the harmonic significance of the passage rested so largely upon the F sharp, E sharp, E, and D sharp. If the second violin and viola parts in that passage were exchanged, the effect would be altogether different.
The increase of skill in the treatment of viola and ’cello parts, but chiefly of the former, is coincident with the development of the science of orchestration. Indeed, it may fairly be said that first-rate writing for the strings, which is the foundation of orchestration, depends largely upon the treatment of the viola part. Any composer knows enough when writing for strings to give his melody to the first violins and his bass to the basses. But the character of his harmony is to be determined by his middle voices, and it is in the treatment of these that we see growth in skill. Berlioz, in his treatise on instrumentation, says of the viola: “It has, nevertheless, been long neglected, or put to a use as unimportant as ineffectual—that of merely doubling, in octave, the upper part of the bass. There are many causes that have operated to induce the unjust servitude of this noble instrument. In the first place, the majority of the composers of the last century, rarely writing in four real parts, scarcely knew what to do with it; and when they did not readily find some filling-up notes in the chords for it to do, they hastily wrote the fatal ‘col basso’—sometimes with so much inattention that it produced a doubling in the octave of the basses, irreconcilable either with the harmony or the melody or with both one and the other. Moreover, it was unfortunately impossible at that time to write anything for the violas of a prominent character, requiring even ordinary skill in execution. Viola-players were always taken from among the refuse of violinists. When a musician found himself incapable of creditably filling the place of violinist, he took refuge among the violas.”
Haydn’s symphonic scores show skill coupled with restraint in the viola parts. The instrument is never called upon to play passages of any difficulty except when errors will be covered up in the general body of tone. But in his scores the viola takes its correct place in a pure four-part harmony. It is seldom that Haydn undertakes to give his strings more than four parts to sing, though the reader will perceive that as each instrument is easily capable of producing two notes at a time, eight real parts can be written for a string quartet. The ’cello has few independent passages in Haydn’s symphonies. It usually doubles the bass part. Mozart, without attempting to give the viola or the ’cello difficulties to overcome, made wider use of their special tone-qualities than did Haydn, though it must be admitted that Mozart’s symphonies show a great deal of three-part writing for strings. Gluck, in his operas, brought out the dramatic value of the lower register of the viola, and Spontini, in “La Vestale,” was the first who assigned the melody to it. Méhul, the French opera-writer, used it so much that Grétry exclaimed, “I’d give a guinea to hear a first string.” Beethoven, in the andante of his fifth symphony, gives the melody in the opening bars to the violas and ’cellos in unison, a very rich and beautiful effect.
In general it may be said that the string quintet did not attain the full measure of its usefulness in the hands of the classical writers till the viola and the ’cello had begun to be treated with freedom and independence. Then there was no longer any difficulty in writing a full four-part harmony, upon which depends the solidity of the string portion of the score. The best test of scoring for strings is to consider whether it sounds full and self-sustaining when unsupported by any wind-instruments. The lover of orchestral music should give especial attention to Beethoven’s scores. Here he will find the perfection of the classical style of writing, which employed almost exclusively a four-part scheme and kept each instrument in its normal place except when used as a solo voice. With the romantic movement scoring for strings began its search after unusual tone-tints, and composers began to learn that they could obtain these in two or three ways—by increasing the number of voices in their harmony, by taking advantage of the large registers of violas and ’cellos and sometimes carrying them above the violins, and by employing solo instruments among the orchestral mass. The beautiful effect of divided string parts in a simple form is heard in the opening measures of Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” overture, but if the reader desires to find the extreme modern style of writing for numerous voices in the strings he must go to Wagner. He, indeed, is guilty of occasional abuses of the practice. In the accompaniment to Brangäne’s song of warning in the second act of “Tristan und Isolde” he divides the strings into fifteen parts, but I am quite sure that no human ear can hear all of them. It is seldom that more than eight real parts can be made advantageous, and then chiefly in slow movements.
It all depends upon what the composer wishes to accomplish. If he desires brilliancy in an animated movement, he will use his first violins in unison and above the middle of their register. If he wishes to get more brilliancy, he will write them still higher and double them with the second violins in the octave below. If he writes them in the middle register and doubles them with the second violins, he will get more sonority, but less brilliancy. On the other hand, if he desires richness of harmony coupled with mystery, or ethereal effects, let him divide his strings into several parts. After that it is a mere matter of register. If he writes high, he will get aërial delicacy and tenderness; if he writes low, he will get pathos as well as tenderness. No better examples can be offered than these from “Lohengrin” and “Die Walküre:”
But, after all, these effects are special, and the fundamental principles of sound writing for the strings are best exemplified by the writings of the classical composers. The chief question for the student of music is: Which of the classical writers is the best model? This is a question not easily answered. Haydn’s earlier works are not at all to be commended, while his later compositions are full of sound scoring. His quartets are not excelled as examples of clear, well-balanced writing for strings, but his symphonies do not reveal fully the value of the viola.
Specific instrumental coloring began with Mozart, and yet he is the finest example of continence and sobriety in orchestration. His string parts are generally substantial and well planned, but, nevertheless, I should hardly advise a beginner to study them. The older composers are like ancient history; one must have sufficient information to know what to accept and what to reject in order to read them with advantage. It will not profit any beginner in instrumentation to go farther back than Beethoven. The great symphonist’s string plan is always notable for its breadth, solidity, and flexibility, and there is nothing in the fundamental work of string writing which cannot be learned from him. But there is another composer whose works are neglected by professors and masters, and yet whose orchestration excels all other in the classic school in buoyancy, clarity, suavity, and polish, and to the constant study of his scores I heartily commend all who desire to master the basis of modern instrumentation. I mean Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. His “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is in itself an epitome of the science of instrumentation, and students and amateurs would do well to give many days and nights to its study.
I advise the student of orchestral effects to examine particularly the overture. For lightness and transparency nothing in the way of writing for the strings excels the opening measures for first and second violins in four parts, with the addition at bar 24 of a most effective pizzicato passage for viola. On page 5 (Litolff score) the first violins, doubled an octave below by the second, carry the melody against a tutti in which the string plan is notable for its simplicity and solidity. On page 9 there is a model passage for strings with violas divided, which is worthy of attention. A concert-goer should seek out such passages in scores and mark them. Then at a performance of the work note the effect. By following out such a plan the music-lover will soon come to perceive the differences between the conservative scoring of the early classical writers and the venturesome and brilliant achievements of the moderns. From such a clear and simple plan of dividing strings as that of Mendelssohn in the overture quoted grew the amazing contrivances of modern writers, such as the passage in Liszt’s “Mazeppa” for first violins in three parts, the third playing pizzicato against shakes by the other two, second violins in three parts, violas and ’celli in two each; or the thunder-storm in Wagner’s “Das Rheingold,” where the strings play a broken chord in twenty different ways, or the superbly effective passage from Nicode’s “Das Meer,” which is constructed on this scheme of divided strings with contrary motions:
The effect of this remarkable passage is one of the things which go to show what can be done in the way of tone-coloring with strings alone. The vital points for the reader to bear in mind are those which have been brought out as to the distribution of the harmony in the strings and the necessity of writing for them so that they are independent. To follow the development of skill in this among the successive composers is one of the most fascinating branches of musical study.
Note.—The tremolo and pizzicato of bowed instruments were invented by Monteverde (1568-1643). The striking of chords on such instruments was introduced into orchestral music by Haydn. Mutes were first used in the orchestra by Gluck in his “Armide.” The oldest and most familiar example of the contrast between muted and unmuted strings is found in the “Creation” at the words, “And God said ‘Let there be light.’” The mutes are taken off at “And there was light.” The oldest known use of harmonics is that in Philidor’s opera “Tom Jones” (1765). The division of violins into more than two parts was first employed by Weber. Beethoven introduced divided violas in the last movement of the Ninth Symphony.
VIII
The Wood-Wind
Whence originated the custom of calling the collection of wooden wind-instruments used in the modern orchestra “the wood-wind,” I am quite sure I do not know. It is still more common among musicians to speak of them simply as “the wood,” notwithstanding that the stringed instruments played with a bow are also made of wood. It is a convenient term, and its meaning being pretty generally understood, only a purist in language would object to its employment. The “wood,” then, in the modern orchestra consists of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Of these instruments the flute is the oldest, and was the first to be used in those indiscriminate assemblies of instruments corresponding to orchestras in the early days of the art. The flute was used in ancient Egypt, and, for the matter of that, so was the oboe, which found its way into the orchestra at least as far back as Beaujoyeux’s “Ballet Comique de la Reine” (1581). Everyone knows a flute when he sees it, and is acquainted with its tone, but I have learned by experience that very few persons know anything about the other wood instruments.
Yet their importance in the modern orchestra cannot be overestimated. Half the tone-coloring of our symphonic works and operatic scores depends upon skilful combinations of the tone-tints of wooden wind-instruments either with one another or with other members of the band. It is almost wholly in the direction of variety of combination that the art of writing for wood-wind has developed. In the early days, before a system of enriched instrumentation had been developed, it was the custom to treat the wood-wind parts without any design that affected the display of their coloring qualities. Sebastian Bach’s scores, for instance, show a complete absorption of the polyphonic style. He regarded his instruments as so many voices, and he treated them as such. Each part was written in a manner essentially melodious, and related to the other parts strictly in contrapuntal style. The conception of purely orchestral effect did not find birth in the mind of Bach. He was too entirely occupied with the development of the polyphonic subject to discover the possibilities of mixed tone-tints. Furthermore, he was not sufficiently imbued with a feeling for the harmonic style—the style in which a leading melody is supported by a subsidiary accompaniment founded on chords, as in our songs. This is the style on which our symphony rests, but it was foreign to Bach’s genius, which was fundamentally fugal.
Hence, Bach did little toward developing the combining powers of the wood-wind. As one writer has excellently said: “He preferred to employ wind-instruments for the purpose of enlarging his original design, rather than that of strengthening or decorating it. When he added a flute or an oboe to his score, he loved not only to make it obbligato, but to write it in such wise that it should form a new real part. Hence, even in his regularly constructed arias, the voice is scarcely so much accompanied by the various instruments employed as made to sing in concert with them, the score containing as many real parts as there are solo voices or instruments introduced into it.” Dr. Parry, in his “Evolution of the Art of Music,” in speaking of the difference between instrumentation of this kind and that of a later date, says: “In the instrumentation of the great masters of the earlier generation, the tone-qualities seem to be divided from one another by innate repulsion; but in the harmonic style they seem to melt into one another insensibly, and to become part of a composite mass of harmony whose shades are constantly shifting and varying.”
Handel’s wood-wind is employed with greater variety than Bach’s. This was to be expected of a composer who, in the first place, was in closer touch with the public, and hence more likely to recognize and yield to the demand for effects. In the second place, Handel, not being secluded as Bach was, stood more forward in the march of musical evolution. He was an opera-writer, and this brought him into immediate contact with the harmonic style as practised by the Italian opera-writers. He learned from some of them, too, the use of grandiose mass effects. The application of these ideas to his instrumentation produced results far different from any conceived by the introspective and historically solitary genius of the great Bach. Handel used a larger orchestra than Bach, yet did many things in the same way. For example, he often wrote for his instruments in the polyphonic style, but in the accompaniments to his great choruses he wrote for several oboes in unison with the violins and a body of bassoons in unison with the basses. At other times he treated his wood-wind parts as figured ornamentation of the more simple string parts, and again he employed the strings and wind alternately, as modern composers do so frequently. Flutes he rarely used except as solo instruments, as in the “Sweet Bird” aria, and clarinets he did not have. But the idea of using some of the wind-instruments, as horns and trumpets, in pairs, had come into existence in Handel’s time, and it was not long before this plan was applied also to the wood-wind.
Its employment naturally began with the recognition of the inability of the wood-wind to play such intricate passages as strings could, and also of their power to sustain the long notes of supporting chords. These features of wood-wind writing existed even in the scores of Scarlatti and Lulli, but it was not until the harmonic style began to be clearly distinguished from the polyphonic in orchestral works that they became generally recognized. In the scores of Emmanuel Bach, the son of Sebastian, we begin to find wood-wind treated in the pure classic style. The chords, to be sure, are very thin, and the composer shows a “’prentice hand” at the dovetailing of his wind parts together so as to make a firm structure, but the skeleton of the modern form is there.
Haydn’s scoring shows a curious combination of Handelian ideas with later developments. The Handelian plan of strengthening string parts with wind parts in unison seems to have taken some hold of Haydn, for he rarely writes unsupported wood-wind passages in his symphonies. He keeps his first violins singing the melody most of the time, and gets variety by doubling them, now with flutes, now with oboes, again with bassoons. A wind solo is very rare. He shows similar weakness in writing for the wood-wind in its internal relations. His clarinet parts usually double those of the oboes or the flutes. There is a great deal of octave writing, and he seldom gets more than three real parts in his wood-wind. It is only because he so constantly employs the string quartet that his symphonic scores do not sound thin. For example, in a passage for wood-wind and strings near the beginning of the familiar symphony in D, the first flute, except in one chord, doubles the second violin at the octave above, while the second flute supports the principal notes of the melody, played by the first violins, at the octave below. The oboes in unison double the violas at the upper octave. The two clarinets in unison double the first flute an octave below. The bassoons and basses play in unison. Toward the end of the last movement there is a passage in which the wind plays sustained chords, and in this the wood is treated in a more open style of harmony. Haydn learned much from Mozart, however, and in the “Creation” and “Seasons,” his writing for wood-wind shows much greater freedom, and a decidedly more definite attempt to get at the tonal characteristics of the instruments.
HAYDN.
There can be no question that Mozart’s orchestration shows a large improvement on Haydn’s, and it is, perhaps, easier for the amateur to discern this in his treatment of the wood-wind than anywhere else. Passages contrasting the whole wood choir with the strings are more numerous, and the combinations of wood with strings show more definite attempts to put new tints upon the symphonic canvas. One finds, for instance, in the G minor symphony the flute tone contrasted with the oboe, combinations of flute and oboe contrasted with bassoon, combinations of flutes, bassoon, and strings, and other effects which give life and variety to the instrumental coloring.
Nevertheless, a conventional manner of treating the wood-wind found its way into general use, and it prevailed until the romanticists, in reaching out for new forms and manners of expression, revolutionized the system of scoring. The old-fashioned way was to employ the four pairs of wood-wind instruments always in thirds and sixths. The flutes almost always took the melody and the next interval below it. The oboes either doubled the flutes in the octave below, or the first oboe doubled the second flute, and the second oboe took the next lower degree of the chord. The clarinets filled in the middle voices, and the bassoons played the bass, most frequently in octaves. The harmony was close, and the texture of this instrumentation was always solid, and, it must be admitted, at times muddy. This manner of writing is found in all Beethoven’s earlier works. For example, here is the opening of the first symphony, the horns and strings (pizzicati) also appearing in the score:
That is perfectly adapted to its purpose; but the chances are that a composer of to-day would have used three flutes, three clarinets, and three bassoons, and would have thickened the harmony by raising the clarinet voices and bringing the first bassoon up nearer the middle, thus:
Brahms followed Beethoven’s early style of scoring for wood, which, it must always be recollected, lies at the foundation of the art. An example from Brahms’s C minor symphony will show the modern writer’s adoption of his predecessor’s plan:
The modern style of writing for the wood-wind choir introduces more passages in contrary motion and a more dispersed harmony. The close chords of the classicists cannot be excelled for their purpose, but the romanticists had new aims and they took advantage not only of unusual tone-tints but of the increased richness brought about by using more voices and extending their chords. Beethoven’s symphonies show a rapid progress toward the modern flexibility of methods in writing for wood-wind. For instance, note the lovely effect of this piece of contrary motion in the Fifth Symphony:
As we advance through the pages of the master’s symphonies we find a constantly increasing flexibility in the treatment of the wood, until in the Ninth we meet with passages containing effects which, when closely examined, seem to be almost amazingly modern. Of course, one never finds in Beethoven’s scores any attempt to make an effect for its own sake. The master symphonist was altogether too busy in giving his thought expression to think of little tricks of instrumental dress. Because of his continence in this matter some modern commentators have expressed the belief that these symphonies would be improved if re-orchestrated according to contemporaneous methods. I presume that someone will eventually try the experiment, and then it will be discovered that Beethoven’s instrumentation was perfectly adapted to his musical ideas. On the other hand, a good deal of our modern music would stand revealed in its naked thinness if it were re-orchestrated in the austere style of Beethoven or with the sunny simplicity of the Mozartian manner. The extreme development of wood-wind writing as known in our day is to be found in the scores of Wagner. No one has surpassed his treatment of the wood in his earlier dramas, and the reader may accept Elsa’s entrance to the cathedral in Act II. of “Lohengrin,” and the exit of Elizabeth in Act III. of “Tannhäuser,” as complete expositions of writing for the unsupported wood-wind. In the introduction to the third act of “Lohengrin” appears this passage, which shows how Wagner could use his wood in relation to the rest of his orchestra:
The reader will at once see the open style in which the wood-wind parts are constructed. The horns serve to enrich and deepen the harmony, while the strings are used chiefly for a rhythmic effect. Weber’s scoring is full of admirable writing for the wood-wind, and for other fine examples I can once more refer the reader to Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music.
The immense variety of coloring to be obtained from the wood is due largely to its power of producing independent harmony. Owing to the large register of the clarinets, they can be used as either soprano or low contralto instruments, while the wide scale of the bassoons permits them to be treated as basses, barytones, or tenors. It thus becomes possible to write in full and euphonious four-part harmony for two flutes and two clarinets, two oboes and two clarinets, two flutes and two bassoons, two oboes and two bassoons, or two clarinets and two bassoons. Each of these combinations differs in color from the others. If now a bass clarinet be added, it becomes possible to give it the fundamental bass and to use the bassoons for middle voices. The addition of an English horn gives further possibilities. If the number of flutes, clarinets, and bassoons be increased to three of each, the composer has still more combinations. And when it is recollected that every one of these wind-instruments can be used as a solo voice, the range of variety becomes wider yet. But the reader must also bear in mind that the addition of horns and strings still further alters the tonal colors. In short, the wood-wind provides the most useful means of giving variety of color to an orchestral score, and all modern writing abounds in ingenious, surprising, and expressive effects made with the wood choir. Yet when the thunder of an orchestral tutti is required, there is no better way to write for wood than that of Beethoven’s symphonies.
I have said nothing yet in this chapter about the piccolo and the contra-fagotto. The piccolo is a much misused instrument, but it is capable of admirable effects, as may be seen in the storm in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony, the magic-fire music in “Die Walküre,” or the “Dance of the Automatons” in Delibes’s “Sylvia” ballet. The double-bassoon, or contra-fagotto, allows the composer to carry the bass of his wood-wind choir an octave lower than the compass of the bassoon. The instrument is coarse in tone and not capable of performing rapid passages, but it has its value, as is shown by its employment in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Brahms’s “Chorale St. Anthony” variations. A double-bass clarinet has been invented by a New York musician. I have not heard this instrument, but am told by competent judges that it is of high value. It carries the bass an octave lower than the bass clarinet, and is capable of great agility and of the finest gradations of tone. Richard Strauss, Weingartner, and other German musicians have promised to introduce it in future scores, and I dare say it will become a fixture in the orchestra. The great value of the clarinet color to the orchestra cannot be overestimated, and any increase in its range and intensity will surely be welcomed by composers.
IX
The Brass and the “Battery”
The brass choir may be dismissed with comparative brevity, because methods of writing for it have changed on lines similar to those followed by the wood. In the early scores one finds that the trumpets were the most noticeable members of the brass, but in later music the horns are far and away the most important. It is possible to get almost any amount of richness, solidity, and variety of color out of an orchestra composed of the wood-wind, four horns, and strings; but if two trumpets and three trombones be substituted for the horns, the ingenuity of the composer will be severely taxed to prevent his work from sounding coarse in forte passages. One reason for this is that, when played moderato, horns blend perfectly with either wood or strings, and when played forte they become brassy in tone and can be made to give a good imitation of trombones. Let the reader note, when he again hears the prelude to the third act of “Lohengrin,” that the brass theme is played the first time by the horns, which sound like trombones robbed of their roughness. The second time the theme is heard the trombones enter and the tone at once becomes brassy. In fact, it may be said at once that the brassy quality of brass instruments comes out fully only when the tone is forced. When it sings moderato the brass choir is capable of the most beautiful effects of rich, organ-like sonority. One has only to recall as a perfect example of this the prayer in the first act of “Lohengrin,” one of the most effective of all modern pieces of writing for brass. When however, immense sonority is required, the fortissimo of the brass choir is the composer’s heavy gun.
The treatment of the trumpet parts in the works of Bach and Handel will be found to differ greatly from the modern manner of writing for them. In the first place, the instruments employed by those composers must have had mouth-pieces of a different kind from those of to-day, or else the players knew some things which ours do not. Both Bach and Handel wrote passages for the trumpet so high that contemporaneous musicians cannot perform them. But that is a fact of less importance to the reader of the present book than the general principle of the scoring. The old composers, then, wrote for trumpets in pairs and made them do a great deal of their work in octaves, except in some of the earliest scores, in which three trumpets were sometimes employed. Even Monteverde wrote for one clarino (a small trumpet), three trombe (the ordinary trumpet), and four tromboni. Handel used three trumpets in the “Dettingen Te Deum,” and Bach in the “Lobe den Herrn.”
Haydn used the trumpets, horns, and drums in the primitive style. The parts were written either in octaves or in sixths—occasionally in thirds—and on tonic and dominant chords, worked with the drums chiefly to enforce the tutti. Passages such as the following abound in Haydn’s symphonies:
It seems hardly possible to contrive a more hollow plan of writing than that which gives to five instruments only three notes of a chord (though the horn parts actually sound an octave lower), yet it is a method which survived till Beethoven’s time, and, so far as the trumpets go, even the mighty Ludwig made no improvement upon it. Mozart’s scores show a very slight advance upon Haydn’s. He more frequently gives three notes of the chord to the brass instruments, but he uses them in the same general way. Of course, these old composers were much restricted by the mechanical limitations of their instruments. They had the old keyless horns and trumpets, and not having the whole scale at their command, they had to write with much restraint. In the horn parts they were further compelled to remember that certain notes could be produced only in the “stopped” form, that is, by the use of one hand inserted in the bell of the instrument. These stopped notes differed wholly in quality from the open tones. This trouble lasted until the F valve horn was perfected within the present century. Before that, however, composers had begun to endeavor to give more variety to the horn parts. Weber and Beethoven both made admirable use of this, the most noble and expressive of the brass instruments, and the scores of Rossini also contain some excellent specimens of horn writing. Rossini, indeed, who was the son of a horn-player, may be said to have introduced a new style of writing for the instrument, treating it with great brilliancy as a florid solo singer. But the substantial principles of horn writing, as practised in the modern orchestra, began with Mozart, who used the instrument with much skill, especially in those scores which do not call for trumpets. Beethoven made more exacting demands upon the instrument, and there is no more effective horn passage in existence than the famous trio of the scherzo in the “Eroica” symphony. The passage is too long for quotation here, but is, of course, familiar to every music-lover. As an example of perfect writing for a solo horn nothing in symphonic music is better than the opening of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky’s fifth symphony.
The methods of employing horns are so numerous that it is not practicable to recount all of them. It may be said, however, that in small scores, which call for wood-wind, two horns and strings, these instruments are often used to form chords with either the wind or the strings. Two horns and two bassoons make very effective harmony; in fact, when the four instruments are played moderato it is almost impossible to distinguish the bassoons from the horns. The latter also blend excellently with clarinets or the low tones of flutes. In writing for four horns some composers give the two upper notes of the chord to the first and second and the two lower to the third and fourth, while others dovetail the parts by giving the first and third notes to the first and second horns. Of course, either method is subject to variation, as in a passage like this:
Here the dovetailing of parts is carried throughout, yet in the third bar the third and fourth horns double the fundamental bass in octaves.
The trombone is a very familiar instrument, and little needs to be added to what has already been said about it. There are slide and valve trombones. The former is the kind always employed in symphonic orchestras. The reader will recognize the instrument by the action of the player’s arm in moving the slide in and out. This shortening and lengthening of the tube of the instrument changes its key and thus enables the player to produce in open tones every note of the chromatic scale. The valve trombone is played with keys like those of a cornet. It is less brilliant and sonorous than the slide instrument. Trombones were employed as far back as Monteverde’s “Orfeo,” early in the seventeenth century, but there seems to have been no definite use of them till the time of Gluck. He thoroughly appreciated the majestic dignity of dramatic utterance of which the trombone was capable, and he used it with eloquent effect. Furthermore, he established for all time the custom of writing for trombones in three parts. After him, as Gevaert pertinently notes, the three trombones became a distinctive feature of dramatic scores, for the classic symphony found no use for their immense sonority till Beethoven called it to his aid in voicing the triumphant emotions of the finale of the Fifth Symphony. Nevertheless, the trombone is not necessarily an instrument to be used only in producing great volumes of tone. A beautiful example of its value in rich and subdued harmony, in company with other instruments, is to be found in the accompaniment to Sarastro’s grand air in Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” as is shown on the following page.
The three trombones, as in this example, usually play three-note chords, except when required to play in unison. The tuba fills out the harmony by doubling the bass part in the lower octave, or forming a four-part chord with the three trombones. There are tubas in several keys, but it is customary to write for the instrument without making any transposition. There is a fine tuba solo, in unison with the double-basses, at the opening of Wagner’s “Eine Faust” overture, and frequent examples of harmony for three trombones and tuba are to be found in the works of the Bayreuth master. In writing for the full brass choir alone a composer has the choice of several methods. He may give the melody to a trumpet or cornet, and use the other instruments for the harmony, or he may let a horn (or two horns in unison) take the melody. If he desires much force, he may give the melody to a trumpet and double it with a trombone. The natural method, however, is to let a trumpet, which is a good soprano voice, sing the air, while the other trumpet and three of the horns take the middle voices, the fourth horn and first and second trombones the lower middle voices, the third trombone and tuba the bass. Similar methods are employed where the brass joins with the rest of the orchestra in the thunder of a tutti fortissimo. The reader will find a most admirable example of this style of writing in the climax of the prelude to “Lohengrin.”
It should be noted that the brass choir offers certain possibilities of color both within itself and in combination with other instruments. Three trumpets are capable of independent harmony, as are four horns, and three trombones. Again, owing to the deep range of the horn, trumpets and horns may form a separate choir, or either trumpets or horns may be united with trombones. The entire brass band may be used with the wood, the strings being silent, or with the strings and without wood. Part of the brass may be used with part of the wood, as in the opening of the “Tannhäuser” overture, where two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons produce a complete and satisfying harmony. Weird and bizarre effects can be produced by combinations of contrasting tones. Perhaps there is no better example than this remarkable use of flutes and trombones in Berlioz’s “Requiem”:
These notes had never been written for trombones before, and the composer, whose knowledge of the capacities of instruments has never been excelled, wrote in the margin of the score: “These notes are in the instruments and the players must get them out.”
As I have already noted, the operatic composers, in their search after dramatic effects, invented many of the instrumental combinations afterward adopted by the composers of purely orchestral music. The scores of Mozart and Gluck, for instance, are rich in passages which make use of the harmony of trombones, and the reader who wishes to study such effects in their early form should note the accompaniment to the words of the Commendatore in the cemetery scene of “Don Giovanni,” to the solo and chorus, “Dieu puissant,” Act I., scene 3, of Gluck’s “Alceste,” the air “Divinités du styx” in the same work, and the chorus “Vengeons et la nature,” Act II., scene 4, of “Iphigenie en Tauride.”
All that the moderns can do with trombone harmonies they learned from Gluck, and by applying his use of dispersed chords to the whole brass choir they have produced new and noble orchestral colors. Where did Wagner learn such things as this, if not from Mozart and Gluck?
Not much needs to be added to that already written about the percussive instruments employed in the orchestra. The tympani remain the most important of these. It has been found that one player can perform upon three drums with little more difficulty than upon two, and hence composers now frequently score for three, and sometimes for four. It is not uncommon for large symphonic scores to call for three tympani together with bass-drum, cymbals, and other percussive instruments. Something has already been said about the methods of writing for tympani, but there is a little to add. It has been noted that the primitive manner of writing was to give one drum the fundamental note of the tonic chord, and the other that of the dominant, but previous to Beethoven’s day it was the invariable practice to write the tonic above and the dominant below, thus tuning the drums at the interval of a fourth. The other style, with the tonic below and the dominant above, making a fifth, was introduced by Beethoven. The same master saw the advantage of tuning his tympani in still other ways, and in the finale of the Eighth Symphony and the scherzo of the Ninth he wrote for them in octaves at their extreme compass (F to F). Again, in the beginning of the last act of “Fidelio,” he wrote their parts in A and E flat in a dissonant passage of much dramatic power. Weber followed Beethoven’s example and wrote for tympani in C and A in the incantation scene of “Der Freischütz,” and Wagner has made a similar use of the drums in the beginning of the third act of “Siegfried.”
In general, it may be said that until the close of the eighteenth century composers employed tympani only in brilliant passages, such as marches, overtures, jubilant choruses, or hymns of thanksgiving; and in these they were always heard with the trumpets. It was Beethoven who took the shackles from the expressive powers of these valuable instruments and showed how they could be made to utter notes of overpowering solemnity and mystery.
The bass-drum is frequently used in the orchestra either with or without the cymbals, and the latter are often heard without the drum. Both instruments are sadly overworked by noisy composers, yet they have their value. The military snare-drum is used in characteristic passages where a military idea is to be suggested. Tambourines and castanets are also used in appropriate places. The gong, which is said to have found its way into western Europe at the time of the French Revolution, when it was used as a funeral bell, found its way into the opera-house as an aid to music of scenes of death or terror, as in Meyerbeer’s resurrection of the nuns in “Robert le Diable.” It is now used occasionally by the symphonists in passages of portentous significance.
Bells came into the orchestra for dramatic purposes, and are employed in various ways, some of which are so familiar that it is barely necessary to mention them. Handel employed a whole chime in a passage in his “Saul,” and Mozart used a set of little bells in “The Magic Flute.” Meyerbeer has called for a single deep-toned bell to imitate the tocsin of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in “Les Huguenots,” and Wagner has used several in “Parsifal.” The latter composer has used the carillon (little bells) with fine effect in the magic-fire music of “Die Walküre.” The lover of orchestral music needs no special information about bells. They are capable of musical pitch, and their notation is in the treble or bass clef, as the case may be.
The xylophone is sometimes employed in music of an artistic sort. A most excellent example of its possibilities may be found in Saint-Säens’ “Danse Macabre,” where it is supposed to imitate the rattling of bones in the grim dance of Death.
Score-readers will often find the parts for those instruments of percussion which are without musical pitch, such as triangles, cymbals, bass-drums, etc., written not on a stave, but on a single line. The rhythm can be indicated satisfactorily in this way, and that is all that is needed.
X
Qualities of Good Orchestration
It is now possible to speak more in detail about those essential qualities of good orchestration to which reference was made at the beginning of this part of the book. Unless I have failed to make myself understood, the reader will be prepared, in applying the principles of orchestration to those works which may come under his attention, to benefit by historical perspective. He will not expect of Haydn or Mozart such richness and complexity of scoring as he will demand and find in the works of contemporaneous composers. The technics of orchestral writing are very thoroughly and widely understood in our day. It is expected, as a matter of course, that every composer shall understand them. Now, this does not purport to be a text-book on orchestration, yet it is desirable that something be said for the information of the amateur of music about the requirements of good orchestration. The object of a volume of this kind is to help people to enjoy music by pointing out what composers have designed for their enjoyment. The pleasure to be derived from the performance of an orchestral composition must naturally be largely increased when the listener is alert to catch all the varieties of excellence which may be combined in it. Orchestration, as I have already said, does not mean the playing of an orchestra, though the word is frequently misused in that sense. It means writing for an orchestra, and it has certain requirements not always to be found even in the works of the great masters. Schumann, for example, scored very poorly, and some of his works suffer by reason of his inability to clothe his poetic thoughts in the most eloquent instrumental language. Meyerbeer, on the other hand, was a veritable trickster with instruments, and could produce a theatrical effect with a penny-ballad idea, while Berlioz could enchant an audience with no idea at all. Beethoven and Wagner are two of the perfect models of orchestral writing, the former in the classic and early romantic style, and the latter in the fully developed romantic style.
WAGNER.
The qualities of good orchestration are solidity, balance of tone, contrast, and variety. By solidity is meant a close warp of the instrumental sounds which does not seem to have holes in it. A chord played by a full orchestra should sound like the utterance of one great instrument, not like the utterance of a number of individuals. The tones of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, brass, and strings should blend into one grand body. When such a result is achieved, whether it be with three instruments or one hundred, the tone is said to be solid. If the tone is not solid, it is because the harmony is not properly dispersed. Either the chords are not written in a sufficiently extended form or they are distributed wrongly among the instruments. The first requirement of solidity is good writing for the strings. It is absolutely necessary that their part should be so written that it is capable of independence; that is, it should sound solid when played without the other instruments. The composer must give each note of a chord to that instrument which is best qualified to utter it, and he must write his chords so that they are suited to orchestral enunciation.
Pianists make sad mistakes when they come to write for orchestra, because they try to write in a piano style. They are so accustomed to seeing a melody in the treble clef and all the accompaniment in the bass, that they frequently fail to find any use for their soprano instruments except the utterance of the melody, while all the barytone and bass instruments grumble a muddy accompaniment, and thus, as musicians say, the orchestra is “all top and bottom.” The illustration below will help to explain what I mean. It shows the first two measures of “Home, Sweet Home,” scored à la pianist, with the orchestra all top and bottom, and as an orchestral writer would spread it out in full harmony and with just a trifle of instrumental effect in the arpeggio for the second clarinet doubled by the ’celli pizzicati, and the basses also written pizzicati to accentuate the attack of each chord.
Even in writing so simple a thing as this, one must keep in mind always the relative tonal powers of the various instruments. For instance, in the second measure the first trumpet should play the B and then descend to the G, because otherwise it would make the upper D too strong and destroy the effect of the melody. The first trombone should do the same thing. The upper D in each chord should go to the first horn and the first bassoon.
Balance of tone is an expression used to indicate a preservation of the equilibrium of power among the three choirs, so that one shall not be heard too clearly at the expense of another. In most instances this depends upon principles similar to those which govern solidity, but it also requires a constant consideration of the sonority of the three choirs regarded as separate bodies. For instance, the wood-wind instruments cannot possibly be played as softly as the strings; hence, if the composer wishes to get a pianissimo effect, he must not write full chords for the wood. Strings, with clarinets or flutes in the lower register, produce an excellent pianissimo. Cornets, on the other hand, cannot play pianissimo along with strings, because their softest tone is louder than that of the strings, and the balance is destroyed. Balance of tone, when all the instruments are playing together, is largely dependent upon the judgment of the conductor. He should see to it, for instance, that his brass instruments do not play too loudly. But it is also a matter of scoring, and frequently a conductor is helpless in the presence of the written page. In the scherzo of Schumann’s E flat symphony there is a passage in which the first theme is given to the clarinets, bassoon, second violins, violas, and ’cellos, while the first violins, trumpets, and horns play chords above them. All are directed to play mezzo-forte, and the result is that the brass chords quite overpower the melody. A similar passage is to be found in the andante of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. No conductor can get a perfect balance of tone out of such passages.
Contrast is obtained by employing instruments of different tone-quality to play the principal parts at different times. A principal melodic idea may be introduced by a trumpet or a clarinet, and continued by flutes or oboes, and finally sung by all the first violins. Sometimes the wood-wind plays alone, to be succeeded by the strings. These alternations of tonal color produce contrasts, without which the richest and most solid scoring might become monotonous. Variety is the result of mixing the tonal tints. For instance, some passages will be written for two flutes, two horns and strings; presently all the strings cease to sound except the first violins, which chant the melody supported by a harmony of brass; now the tone of the clarinets mingles with that of the violins, and the combination of the two produces a new color. Variety is also obtained by giving melodic fragments, not essential parts of the melody, to some of the instruments not engaged in voicing the principal theme. As the author has had occasion to say elsewhere:
“A great many persons do not hear anything definitely except the principal melody, while beautiful bits of counterpoint and exquisite effects of harmony are lost to them because they have not learned how to follow the many voices of an orchestra. Every person should acquire the habit of ear-analysis. The amount of pleasure added to the hearing of a symphony by ability to hear all the instruments at once is what might be added to the delight of seeing a painting if the power to perceive the colors were given to one who had before noticed only the drawing.”
The student of orchestral music will find great solidity and balance of tone in the works of the early masters. Bach’s writing is always substantial, but there is no large amount of contrast and variety in it. This is partly owing to the lack of instruments and partly to the meagre technical resources of those wind-instruments which he had. The oboe was Bach’s mainstay as a wind voice, and its range of expressiveness, of color, of dynamic gradation, and of agility, is small. The wood-wind choir could not reach its full measure of usefulness till it had acquired the clarinet, which has within itself a considerable range of tone-color, is a far more agile instrument than the oboe, and possesses in a far higher degree than any other wood-wind instrument the power of increasing and diminishing the volume of tone. It is, indeed, as Berlioz has said in his enthusiastic style, the true dramatic soprano of the orchestra. “This beautiful soprano instrument, so ringing, so rich in penetrating accents, when employed in masses, gains, as a solo, in delicacy, evanescent shadowings, and mysterious tenderness what it loses in force and powerful brilliancy.... It is the one of all the wind-instruments which can best breathe forth, swell, diminish and die away its sound.”
Without the clarinet, however, Bach and Handel accomplished much with the means at their command. Witness the former’s lovely piece of writing for a horn and two bassoons in the “Quoniam” of the famous mass in B minor, and the latter’s admirable coloring with even strings alone, as in “Angels ever Bright and Fair,” and “Suddenly There was Round About Him a Multitude.” The possibilities of coloring increased as new instruments came into use, and the clarinet was at once appreciated by Mozart, who may be said to have made the first systematic attempts at specific tone-coloring.
The completion of the wood-wind choir by the introduction of the clarinet gave needed freedom to composers. Haydn in his old age advanced beyond Mozart in tone-coloring, while Beethoven, who, as I have shown, had a special feeling for the individuality of instruments, developed the features of contrast and variety far beyond anything which his predecessors had conceived. Weber’s orchestral technic is immense. He understood thoroughly all the requirements of good orchestration, and to this day his works sound full, sonorous, and brilliant, even when heard at concerts where the most recent products are displayed. With Weber, the romantic movement, of which I shall have more to say hereafter, was fairly launched, and its representative composers have all employed every resource of contrast and variety without neglecting solidity and balance of tone. Brahms is one of the moderns who did not master the technic of orchestration. He wrote heavy chords low in the bass in his piano music, and he carried this practice into his orchestration, with the result that his scoring is almost always thick and heavy in the middle voices. Wagner, on the other hand, knew how to write deep, sonorous basses without disturbing the clarity of his work. Most of the French composers score beautifully. In all the field of opera there is not a warmer or more delicately refined score than that of “Faust,” while M. Saint-Säens’s orchestration is at once the model and the despair of young composers.
Amateurs of music will find, as they advance in the study of scores, that every composer has a distinct style. For instance, Tschaikowsky wrote much that was weird, sombre, or melancholy, and the music-lover will find that he made extensive use of the upper register of the bassoon (and, indeed, of its whole scale), of the low notes of clarinets, and of the English horn to aid him in producing a gloomy, dry color. Liszt’s instrumentation is always rich and heavy; Dvorák’s always strong, clear, and bright. Beethoven has little peculiarities, such as doubling a melody in the lower octave with a bassoon. Meyerbeer is fond of queer combinations, such as English horn and piccolo. Richard Strauss writes staccato chords for trumpets, and makes horns do things which fifty years ago would have been deemed impossible. But the fundamental principles of orchestration cannot be violated by any writer with impunity, and the student will find these principles epitomized and amply illustrated in the nine symphonies of the supreme master of symphonic composition, Ludwig von Beethoven.
XI
Qualities of Orchestral Performance
Perhaps the first requisite for good orchestral performance should be set forth as good instruments. It is not too much to say that some orchestras are seriously injured by the presence of half a dozen vulgar-toned fiddles among the violins, by a very yellow clarinet among the wood, or a blatant cornet where a mellow trumpet ought to be. This is seldom the case in a regularly maintained concert orchestra, yet it does happen sometimes even there. The New York Philharmonic Society suffers a good deal from this cause. The orchestra is the society, and many of its members never play in any artistic concerts except those of the organization. They have poor instruments, which do not aid in the production of a noble tone, such as should come from an orchestra of this kind. Again, there are individual players whose peculiar faults are displayed to the general disadvantage of an orchestra. The concert-master (leading first violin) of a certain New York orchestra cannot play in tune and has a vicious style of bowing. The first oboe of the same orchestra has a peculiar tone, which robs his instrument of its individuality and makes it resemble a clarinet. A well-known solo horn player produces from his instrument a tone which sounds more like that of a valve trombone or a euphonium than that of a French horn. Such individual faults injure the general effect of an orchestra’s playing, though they are not strictly to be classed under the head of qualities of orchestral performance. The requisites of concert orchestral playing are the following:
Quality, solidity, and balance of tone; precision, unanimity, flexibility, and light and shade.
The quality of tone which proceeds from an orchestra should be smooth and mellow. It should never be possible for the audience to hear the rasping of stringed instruments, nor the gasping of brass ones. The tone of an orchestra should be capable of growing to its full power without pantings. It should always flow freely and with liquid purity. It should never reveal its own mechanism. One should never be able to detect the scraping of the bow which makes the fiddle speak, nor the vibrating of the reed in the throat of the clarinet. The tone of a great orchestra should come forth spontaneously and without apparent effort, as that of a great singer does, filling every cranny of the auditorium and seizing upon the heartstrings of every hearer.
And it should have solidity, which is easier to hear than to describe. One knows at once when the tone sounds thin and anæmic and when it sounds healthy and full-blooded, but it is not easy to point out the peculiarities of this quality. Sometimes an orchestra’s tone is not solid because there are too few players for the demands of the auditorium. Sometimes it is because the instrumentalists are not playing exactly together, and the vibrations of each tone of the melody, as caused by say a dozen violins, are not isochronous. Again, tone lacks solidity at times because the individual performers are not capable, and it is frequently, like want of quality, due to poor instruments.
Balance of tone has the same meaning in performance as it has in orchestration. It is equality of dynamic force among the constituent parts of the band. As already said, it is the result partly of good orchestration and partly of the guiding skill of the conductor; but it depends also in a measure upon the constitution of the orchestra. The average theatre orchestra is an eloquent demonstration of the bad effects of poor balance among the instruments. The desperate struggles of two first violins, one second, one viola, one ’cello, and one double-bass to produce sufficient sound to make themselves heard in forte passages against the sonorous pealing of a cornet, a trombone, and a pair of tympani, are as vain as they are ridiculous. Such efforts are repeated on a larger scale when modern symphonic music is performed by an orchestra whose strings are led by six first violins. It is not possible for six firsts, six seconds, four violas, three ’cellos, and three double-basses to maintain a proper balance of tone against two or three flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, a tuba, and tympani. An orchestra with six first violins should not attempt music orchestrated in the romantic style. It would be much better for such an orchestra to omit two horns and add two violins, and confine itself to music suitable to such an array of instruments. When there are only six first violins it is not wise to attempt works which call for divisions of those six into four parts. It is always absurd to hear an orchestra with three ’cellos trying to “fake” the opening measures of Rossini’s “William Tell” overture, and in the tutti the trombone rages like a lion. It is generally conceded in this country that a concert orchestra requires about 60 stringed instruments to give a proper balance to the wood and brass. I have already spoken of the constitution of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which has 58 strings on a basis of 16 first violins. The Chicago Orchestra has 61, and the New York Philharmonic Society, 78. The London Philharmonic has 54, the Vienna Philharmonic, 68, and the Paris Conservatoire, 60.
Given a proper array of instruments, the preservation of balance of tone is due chiefly to the conductor, though it is also necessary that the players should not be troubled with individual ambition. The occasional solo affords the individual player an opportunity to display his powers, but at all other times he should be content to sacrifice his glory for the general result. A good orchestra is in this respect like a perfect boat-crew; every man in it should be part of a machine to produce a single effect. Whenever one man in a boat-crew is seized with a notion that he can pull the whole boat himself, the crew goes to pieces and loses the race. So in an orchestra, if the second trombonist, for example, is convinced that the audience ought to hear his part, he destroys the balance of the performance and oversets the composer’s purpose. Of course, a conductor must do all he can to see that the ambitious second trombonist does not mis-behave, but it requires a real esprit de corps in an orchestra to maintain an ideal balance of tone. Brass is blatant in forte passages if allowed to have its own way, and wood, unrestrained, is frequently too strong in moderato or piano bits.
CHARLES LAMOUREUX.
Plenty of strings is the only remedy for a bad balance which careful playing will not correct, and a plenty of strings is to be found only in large concert orchestras. Even in opera-houses the strings are often too few, while in theatres they nearly always are. The average theatrical manager knows very little about music and cares less. A business manager who knew something of the tone art was once engaged by a manager who controlled a travelling exhibition of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with all Mendelssohn’s music. He thought his exhibition worthy of the attention of the metropolis, but the business manager said to him:
“If we go into New York, we’ll have to increase the orchestra.”
“What for?” replied the manager. “We have all sorts of instruments now, haven’t we?”
“But we ought to have more first violins.”
“What! more than two?”
But, after all, the theatre is hardly the place to look for art in music. The concert-hall and the opera-house are its homes, but owing to the conditions which surround the performance of opera in most places, only the concert orchestra can be expected to show the highest possibilities of performance. In such an orchestra we may expect to find a proper distribution of instruments, and having that, we should demand a perfect solidity and balance of tone. I can hardly put too much emphasis on the necessity of good tone. Although the mere quality of sound belongs to the lowest department of musical excellence, the sensuous, it is nevertheless an instrument of the greatest power in the presentation of musical thought. There is something vital in a noble tone, something enthralling and inspiring. One recognizes it immediately when it is the voice of a distinguished singer, and I have seen audiences moved to amazing enthusiasm by a glorious voice which had neither dramatic intelligence nor vocal cunning to aid the potent spell of its pure quality. An orchestra should be a mighty singer in every sense, and it must have the first requisite of one—a fine voice. There should be nothing cheap or vulgar in its tone. It should be one grand flow of gorgeous, all-surrounding sound, smooth, sweet, mellow, and pure, whether heard in the aërial whisper of the last bars of the “Lohengrin” prelude or the thunderous peal of the “Kaisermarsch.”
Tone being assured, the next traits of vital importance in orchestral performance are precision and unanimity. Precision is a feature of attack, while unanimity refers to those parts of a passage not included in the attack. Both are dependent upon the elementary business of keeping together. If the players of an orchestra are not at all times absolutely at one in their work, there can be neither precision nor unanimity. Precision is keeping absolutely together in beginning and finishing, whether it be a detached chord or tone, or a phrase. Unanimity is keeping together, in time and force and all other requirements, between the beginning and the end. The act of commencing a tone is called the attack. This should be so precise that the tone seems to be produced by a single instrument, not by a number. If it is a detached tone, or a phrase like that at the beginning of Beethoven’s C minor symphony, every instrument engaged in its utterance should cease to sound at exactly the same instant. Precision is a matter in which many auditors are deceived. I well remember how I gaped in wonder in my boyish days when I heard an orchestra under Theodore Thomas play a series of staccato chords with such precision that they came out like the cracks of a whip. I have since learned that this is one of the easiest feats of an orchestra. It is a far greater test of precision to play with absolute sharpness and clearness of cut a passage such as this from the Ninth Symphony:
Furthermore, precision is just as necessary to the correct performance of flowing cantabile passages as it is to those of vigorous declamatory style. It belongs to the general department of accuracy, and without accuracy in such features as the duration of sounds, no orchestral playing can have color, force, or finish.
Unanimity, as I have said, means keeping together in matters other than the beginning and ending of a tone or phrase. Attention has been called to the fact that if the notes of a melody and its harmonies are not played in exactly the same time by all the instruments engaged in their performance, the quality of tone is seriously impaired; but it must now be added that further injury comes in the shape of destruction of the outlines of the rhythm. This is such an important factor in all music that to decrease its clearness is like blurring the outlines of a drawing. When the rhythm of an orchestral composition or the outlines in a painting are destroyed, there remains nothing but a blurred color-scheme. A color-scheme is often very pretty, but it is no more a composition than the view in a kaleidoscope is a landscape.
Unanimity, furthermore, includes something beyond mere clearness of enunciation. It embraces also accent. In such a phrase as that quoted above from the Ninth Symphony, there are a series of natural accentuations, and it is essential to a brilliant and stirring utterance of the phrase that every instrument in the orchestra should put the accents in the same places and give them the same amount of force. In passages which are not written for the whole orchestra there should be unanimity in accent among those for which they are written. In fact, an orchestra should have absolutely military accuracy in all its work, and this presupposes long and arduous drill and extended association. Permanency is a necessity to fine orchestral work. Men who have played together a long time, even under an inferior conductor, will play with much more precision and unanimity than men newly brought together under the beat of a famous director. The highest results are attainable only with a permanent orchestra under a competent conductor.
But with all this precision and unanimity the playing of an orchestra should be flexible. As I have said in another volume, “The music should never sound rigid, but should seem to come in a sinuous stream of purling sound.” The average concert-goer would probably describe the playing of an orchestra deficient in flexibility as “stiff,” and that is a very expressive way of putting it. It will be remembered that in “H. M. S. Pinafore” the only person who was invariably right was Dick Deadeye, but everyone applauded Buttercup’s assertion that he was “a little triangular.” An orchestra must always be correct, but it need not be triangular. Inflexibility is usually the result of bad conducting.
A martinet, with phlegmatic temperament, can make an orchestra play as inflexibly as a street piano. A conductor of excessively melting temperament will often melt his orchestra so that its playing will be as sweet, as flexible, and as limp as hot taffy.
And this brings us to the all-important question of light and shade. The fundamental element of light and shade is the distribution of force and speed. An orchestra is capable of a pianissimo, which is like the softest whisper of a summer evening’s breeze, and of a fortissimo, which is like the booming of a thunder-storm. There is an infinitesimal scale of gradations between these two extremes, and these should all be properly employed. Of course, their use is guided by the conductor, but they form a part of the technics of orchestral playing, and hence must be described here. All lovers of music know what effects are brought about by skilful use of alterations of tempo—the accelerando and ritardando—and by the combination of these with gradations of force. In the application of these devices an orchestra should be adept. The placing of the effects is, of course, indicated in the score, or, if not, must be the result of the judgment and taste of the conductor; but the manner of producing them is the work of the performers. It requires frequent rehearsal to get these effects made with precision, unanimity, and smoothness of tone, yet they should be so made. An orchestra should sing like a great singer, and it should be able to produce all the delicate shades of song as a human voice can.
But an orchestra has many voices, and the composer often takes advantage of this fact. He frequently calls upon his instrument to sing several melodies simultaneously, or, as in the case of a fugal work, different parts of the same melody at the same time. This kind of writing calls for a distinct delivery of the middle voices. Even in compositions which are not polyphonic, there are often subsidiary melodic fragments in parts other than those which are playing the principal theme. These fragments should be heard; composers do not write them by accident. They should blossom out spontaneously as exuberant exfoliations of the harmonic garden. They should not be thrust obstreperously in the faces of the auditors, but they should not be permitted to escape notice. The middle voices are sadly neglected at times. Some conductors seem to confine their whole study of a score to hunting for the principal theme and bringing that out, while the delicious bits of counterpoint, which the composer has been at no small pains to devise, are left to take care of themselves. Such conductors remind me of a professional musician who was engaged in a discussion of Richard Wagner in the corridor of the Metropolitan Opera House, while inside the orchestra was playing the vorspiel to “Die Meistersinger.”
“It is a pity,” said this wise man, in a condescending manner; “but Wagner knew absolutely nothing about counterpoint.”
And at that very instant the orchestra was singing five different melodies at once; and, as Anton Seidl was the conductor, they were all audible.
Light and shade, as we roughly call them—the German “nuancirung” (nuancing) is far better—depend also on phrasing. In singing, phrasing means the division of the melody into groups of notes, so that breath can be taken. Now, phrasing is obviously quite as vital to wind-instrument players as to singers, because the former, too, must have intervals to take breath. Obviously, if the several players stop to take breath, they should cease to sound their instruments at the same instant, and begin again with equal precision. A similar grouping of notes is made in the performance of bowed instruments by the movements of the bow. All violin-players know that there is a difference in the results produced by the up-stroke and those by the down-stroke. Phrasing in the orchestra, then, is the technical treatment of the natural groups of tones which form the component parts of a melody in such a way that they shall come out clearly and symmetrically and in a vocal style. Here again we come upon the technical part of a conductor’s work. It is he who regulates the phrasing. The distribution of up and down strokes of the bow is in a general way left to the concert-master, the leader of the first violins, but he is, of course, subject to the direction of the conductor. Many composers of the present day mark the bowing in particular passages, but most of them content themselves with indicating such things as slurred notes and staccati, or special effects, such as playing near the bridge, or with the point of the bow. The legato of stringed instruments is indicated in a score by a curved line drawn over or under the passages, thus:
Detached notes are indicated by dots, while lightly detached ones, to be played with a single stroke, are indicated by dots with a slur, or legato mark, over them, thus:
All these details of bowing and of breathing in the wind-instrument choir should be carefully regulated. They are elementary parts of the technic of orchestral performance, and they contribute to the production of smoothness, elegance, and refinement in the playing of a band, as well as to force, brilliancy, and expression. Furthermore, all demands of the composer in regard to the use of particular instruments or the uncommon treatment of instruments should be respected. If the result is bad, it is the composer’s fault. But it is usually good. When Hans Sachs, in “Die Meistersinger,” makes David a journeyman cobbler, he smacks the boy’s ear with his broad hand, and Wagner imitates the ringing in the offended member by the whizzing note of a stopped horn. To play that note unstopped would be to defeat the composer’s intention. It would be equally wrong to neglect to put mutes on where directed to do so. Sometimes composers call for very curious performances, but their wishes should be respected as far as possible. For instance, in his “Lelio, ou le retour à la vie,” Berlioz has written a passage for clarinet “con sordino,” and has directed that the instrument should be muted by being “wrapped in a bag of cloth or leather.” His desire was to give the clarinet a veiled and distant sound, and his wishes should be carried out. In another place Berlioz calls for tympani drum-sticks with heads of sponge. Wagner calls for tenor tubas in the funeral march of “Die Götterdämmerung,” and Mozart calls for a mandolin to accompany Don Giovanni’s “Deh vieni.” Such requirements should always be fulfilled, and so should all directions as to the manner of performance.
We are in the habit of thinking that what may be called the virtuoso orchestra is a product of our own time, but perhaps we flatter ourselves. It is very certain that the orchestra of the Paris Conservatoire played with splendid precision and with much fire half a century ago, and there are other orchestras in Europe which have to live up to some pretty old traditions. It was only last September (1898) that the Dresden Court Orchestra celebrated its three hundred and fiftieth anniversary. To be sure, when it was established by the Elector Maurice it was a singing choir, whose members learned to play instruments in order to supply accompaniments; but it developed into an orchestra, and as such it helped to produce Heinrich Schütz’s “Seven Last Words of Christ,” and his “Daphne,” which was the first German opera. The Esterhazy orchestra, under Haydn, was no mean band, and the famous Mannheim orchestra, under Stamitz, revealed possibilities of performance which did much toward forming Mozart’s symphonic style. The Leipsic Gewandhaus orchestra dates back to 1743, when it numbered sixteen players and gave its concerts in a private house. These concerts were interrupted by the Seven Years’ War, but were resumed in 1763 with an orchestra of thirty. The first concert in the new Gewandhaus rooms took place on September 29, 1781. Since that time the seasons have been regular. Mendelssohn was the conductor from 1835 to 1843, and Neils W. Gade from 1844 to 1848. The development of style and technic in the performances of this orchestra had very considerable influence on the advance of orchestral playing throughout Europe. Other notable German organizations are the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and the orchestra of the opera at Munich. The Vienna Philharmonic is celebrated for its strings.
In France the progress of orchestral playing received its first impetus from the labors of François Joseph Gossec (1733-1829), whose extraordinarily long and active life enabled him to see not only the blossom, but some of the early fruit of his efforts. He was the first French composer of symphonies, and in 1770 founded the “Concert des Amateurs.” He did much toward developing good orchestral playing in Paris, and prepared the way for the famous François Antoine Habeneck (1781-1849), who, in 1828, founded the “Société des Concerts du Conservatoire.”
Orchestral playing has never reached a high plane in England, but the London Philharmonic Society has an important history because of the famous works written for it, among them symphonies and overtures by Cherubini, Spohr’s second symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony. In America orchestral performances have always been popular since the foundation of the New York Philharmonic Society in 1842. The labors of such admirable conductors as Theodore Eisfeld, Carl Bergmann, and, most of all, Theodore Thomas, did much to develop a high degree of skill among orchestral performers and a wide appreciation on the part of the public. The debt of the country to Mr. Thomas is one that it will carry to the end of its musical development. The foundation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in 1880, by Colonel Henry L. Higginson, of Boston, gave the United States its first concert orchestra established on a permanent basis, and the organization has come to be regarded as one of the leading orchestras of the world. The Chicago Orchestra, directed by Theodore Thomas, is its only rival in America.
From a photograph by Falk.
THEODORE THOMAS.
Nothing more excellently pictures the conditions under which an orchestra comes to the perfection of its work than a few words in one of Schumann’s comments on music in Leipsic: “Before we take leave of the Gewandhaus concerts for half a year,” he says, “we must award a crown of merit to the forty or fifty orchestral members. We have no solo-players like Brod in Paris or Harper in London; but even these cities can scarcely boast such fine, united playing. And this results from the nature of circumstances. Our musicians here form a family; they see each other and practise together daily; they are always the same, so that they are able to play a Beethoven symphony without notes. Add to these a concert-master who can conduct such scores from memory, a director who knows them by, and reveres them at, heart, and the crown is complete.”