Instruments of Percussion.
In the “battery” the instruments of prime importance are the tympani. Beethoven gave the cue to what could be accomplished with these in the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony and also in the octave thumps in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, while for a weirdly sombre effect there is nothing equal to the faint roll of the tympani at the beginning and end of the Funeral March in “Götterdämmerung.” Cymbals are 196 used in several ways. Besides the ordinary clash, Wagner has produced a sound somewhat like that of a gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on one cymbal, and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on one cymbal.
Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Dvorak, Tschaikowsky, and, of course, Richard Strauss—it hardly is necessary to mention either Berlioz or Wagner again—have shown brilliant technique in orchestration. On the other hand, Schumann and Brahms do not appear to have understood or to have taken the trouble to understand the individual characteristics of orchestral instruments, and, as a result, their works for orchestra are not as effective as they should be. Their orchestration has been called “muddy.”
It is Richard Strauss’s opinion that the next advancement in orchestration will be brought about by adding largely to certain groups of instruments which now have only comparatively few representatives in the orchestra. He instances that at the Brussels Conservatory one of the professors had Mozart’s G minor symphony performed for him on twenty-two clarinets, of which four were basset horns (alto clarinets), two brass clarinets, and one contra-bass clarinet; and he suggests that it will be along such lines that the orchestra of the future will be enlarged. With an orchestra with all the family groups of instruments complete in the manner suggested by Strauss, and used by a musical genius, a genius who combines with melodic invention virtuosity of instrumentation, marvellous results are yet to be achieved.
XI
CONCERNING SYMPHONIES
I have said that music, like all other arts, had a somewhat formless beginning, then gradually acquired form, then became too rigidly formal, and in modern times, while not discarding form, has become freer in its expression of emotion.
Instrumental music, since the beginning of the classical period, has been governed largely by the symphony, which the reader should bear in mind is nothing more than a sonata for orchestra, the form having first developed on the pianoforte and having been handed over by it to the aggregation of instruments. Sir Hubert Parry, from whose book, “The Evolution of the Art of Music,” I have had previous occasion to quote, has several apt paragraphs concerning the earlier development of the sonata, which of course apply with equal force to the symphony. After stating that the instinct of the composers who first sought the liberation of music from the all-predominating counterpoint, impelled them to develop movements of wider and freer range, which should admit of warm melodic expression, without degenerating into incoherent, rambling ecstasy, Sir Hubert continues: “They had the sense to see from the first that mere formal continuous melody is not the most suitable type for instrumental music. 198 There is deep-rooted in the matter of all instrumental music the need of some rhythmic vitality. These composers then set themselves to devise a scheme in which, to begin with, the contour of connected melodic phrases, supported and defined by simple harmonic accompaniment, gave the impression of definite tonality—that is, of being decisively in some particular key and giving an unmistakable indication of it. They found out how to proceed by giving the impression of using that key and passing to another without departing from the characteristic spirit and mood of the music, as shown in the ‘subjects’ and figures; and how to give the impression of relative completeness, by closing in a key which is in strong contrast to the first, and so round off one-half of the design.