The gigantic figure of Beethoven stands apart. His music abounds in countless leonine leaps of orchestral imagination, but his technique, viewed in detail, remains much inferior to his titanic conception. His use of the trumpets, standing out above the rest of the orchestra, the difficult and unhappy intervals he gives to the horns, the distinctive features of the string parts and his often highly-coloured employment of the wood-wind,—these features will combine causing the student of Beethoven to stumble upon a thousand and one points in contradiction.
It is a mistake to think that the beginner will light upon no simple and instructive examples in modern music, in that of Wagner and others. On the contrary, clearer, and better examples are to be found amongst modern composers than in what is called the range of classical music.
Extract from the Preface to the last edition.
My aim in undertaking this work is to reveal the principles of modern orchestration in a somewhat different light than that usually brought to bear upon the subject. I have followed these principles in orchestrating my own works, and, wishing to impart some of my ideas to young composers, I have quoted examples from my own compositions, or given references to them, endeavouring to show, in all sincerity, what is successful and what is not. No one can know except the author himself the purpose and motives which governed him during the composition of a certain work, and the practice of explaining the intentions of a composer, so prevalent amongst annotators, however reverent and discreet, appears to me far from satisfactory. They will attribute a too closely philosophic, or excessively poetic meaning to a plain and simple fact. Sometimes the respect which great composers' names command will cause inferior examples to be quoted as good; cases of carelessness or ignorance, easily explained by the imperfections of current technique, give rise to whole pages of laborious exposition, in defence, or even in admiration of a faulty passage.
This book is written for those who have already studied instrumentation from Gevaert's excellent treatise, or any other well-known manual, and who have some knowledge of a number of orchestral scores.
I shall therefore only just touch on such technical questions as fingering, range, emission of sound etc.[6]
The present work deals with the combination of instruments in separate groups and in the entire orchestral scheme; the different means of producing strength of tone and unity of structure; the sub-division of parts; variety of colour and expression in scoring,—the whole, principally from the standpoint of dramatic music.