Primitive Orchestral Efforts.
Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer to use orchestral instruments in opera, and to display skill in utilizing their individual characteristics, the most important of these early men was Claudio Monteverde (1568-1643). In his “Orpheo,” which he produced 169 in 1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords (and it may be of interest to note here that instruments of the pianoforte class were long used in orchestras as connecting links between all the other instruments), two bass viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two little French violins, two large guitars, two wood organs, two viola di gambas, one regal, four trombones, two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and three trumpets with mutes—a fairly formidable array of instruments when the period is considered. Of especial interest are the “two little French violins,” which probably were the same as our modern violins, now the prima donnas of the orchestra and far outnumbering any other instrument employed.
It was Monteverde who in his “Tancredi e Clorinda” made use for the first time of a tremolo for stringed instruments, and it is said so to have astonished the performers that they at first refused to play it. Before Monteverde there were operatic composers like Jacopo Peri, and after him Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti, who did much for their day to develop the orchestra. This is a very brief summary of the early development of instrumental music, a story that easily could fill a volume—which, probably, however, very few people would take the trouble to read.
Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra.
The first really modern composer for the orchestra was Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who also may be considered the father of the symphony. Born before Mozart, he also survived that composer. His music is gay and 170 naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater genius for the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is only a trifle more emotional in his symphonies. The three greatest of these which he composed during the summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and C major (known as the “Jupiter”), show a decided advance in the knowledge of orchestration, and the E flat major is notable because it is the first symphonic work in which clarinets were used. Haydn’s and Mozart’s symphonies—that is, the best of them—sound agreeable even to-day in a concert hall of moderate size. But because modern music with its sonorous orchestra requires large auditoriums, like Carnegie Hall in New York, these charming symphonic works of the earlier classical period are swallowed up in space and much of their naive and pretty effect is lost.
Beethoven may be said to have established the modern orchestra. Very few instruments have been added to it since his time, and if an orchestra to-day sounds differently from what it did in his day, if the works of modern composers sound richer and more effective from a modern point of view than his orchestral compositions, it is not because we have added a lot of new instruments, but because our composers have acquired greater skill in bringing out their peculiar tone qualities and because the technique of orchestral players has greatly improved.
It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven’s symphonies show such a great advance upon those of his predecessors. The point is not that Beethoven added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he 171 handled all the instruments which he included in his band with much greater skill than his predecessors had shown. Many writers affect to despise technique. But in point of fact the development of technique and the development of art go hand in hand. An artist, be he writer, painter or musician, cannot adequately express his ideas unless he has the means of doing so or the genius to create the means.
How He Developed Orchestral Resources.
In following Beethoven’s symphonies from the First to the Ninth, we can see the modern orchestra developing under his hands from that handed over to him by Haydn and Mozart. In the First and Second Symphonies, Beethoven employs the usual strings, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets and tympani. In the Third Symphony, the “Eroica,” he adds a third horn part; in the Fifth a piccolo, trombones and contrabassoon. Although employed in the finale only, these instruments here make their first bow in the symphonic orchestra. In the Ninth Symphony Beethoven introduced two additional horns, the first use of four horns in a symphony. The scoring of these symphonies is given somewhat more in detail in the chapter “How the Orchestra Grew,” in Mr. W. J. Henderson’s “The Orchestra and Orchestral Music,” a well conceived and logically developed book, in which the full story of the orchestra and its growth is clearly and interestingly told.
Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree 172 than his predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral instruments, he also compelled orchestral players to acquire a better technique by giving them more difficult music to execute. In point of greater difficulty in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds about the same relation to the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn as the Beethoven pianoforte sonatas do to the sonatas of those composers.