Seating Plan of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Amateurs will find that they must extend their musical knowledge a little, if they desire to read orchestra scores. Persons who have studied only piano playing are nonplussed when they find themselves in the presence of transposing instruments and other clefs than those known as the treble and the bass. I have already briefly explained the peculiarity of what are called transposing instruments, but it will be well to give the reader some further help in dealing with them in reading scores. A question which I have frequently heard is, “Why don’t they make all instruments in C?” The answer to this question is that there could only be one reason for doing so, namely, to make it easy for amateurs to read scores. There are many more substantial reasons for making instruments in various keys. For instance, brass instruments produce most easily and with the finest tone and richest sonority their natural notes—those notes which are produced without any aid from valves or pistons as the notes of a cavalry bugle. If a composer in writing a brilliant march in B natural, a bright and incisive key for the strings, wishes to introduce trumpets, he can make most effective use of those in B natural. But it is not possible always to have clarinets, trumpets, and horns in every key ready for instant use, so custom and experience have induced musicians to make a judicious selection. Clarinets in A and B flat are now used far more than those in C. As Gevaert says: “The choice among the three clarinets is not always made from the simple consideration of facility; often it is guided by the character of the tone peculiar to each. The clarinet in C has a timbre brilliant almost to rudeness.” He further notes that it is therefore used by the classic composers mostly in brilliant movements in the simple diatonic scales. The clarinet in B flat or that in A may be chosen for reasons of a like nature. The reader, however, will probably be more interested in knowing how he is to read clarinet parts. If they are in C, he will have no trouble, because there will be no transposition. A clarinet in B flat playing music written in C, sounds one tone lower than that scale. Hence the key of C is used for a clarinet in B flat only when the violins are playing in B flat.
In other words, every sound which issues from a B flat clarinet is one whole tone lower than that written in the score. If you write C, the instrument sounds B flat. If you wish the instrument to sound C, you must write D. If you wish it to sound F sharp, you must write G sharp. If you wish it to sound E natural, you must write F sharp or G flat.
The composer has the choice of two methods of writing his clarinet part. He may write always without any key signature and mark all flats and sharps as accidentals, or he may use a key signature. Custom has sanctioned the latter method, which is the more rational. I have just said that every tone which issues from a B flat clarinet is a whole interval below the written character. Therefore, all music for a B flat clarinet must be written one interval higher than it is intended to sound, and this, the reader will see, simply results in transposing a B flat clarinet part into a key one tone higher than that of the composition. For a composition in C write for B flat clarinets in the key of D. For one in D write for B flat clarinets in E. For one in E flat write for B flat clarinets in F. There is another simple way of looking at this matter. Clarinets in B flat have already two flats in their open scale. If you want them to play in C, you must contradict these two flats by two sharps, and two sharps are the signature of the key of D. Hence, write in D for B flat clarinets to play in C. In reading a score all that the amateur needs to do is to remember that every note written for the B flat clarinet sounds one tone lower than written. Thus the chord of C for two flutes, two oboes, and two clarinets might be written as at A so as to sound as at B.
In the case of clarinets in A the same principles apply. The clarinet in A sounds A when C is written, and it sounds the entire scale of A when the scale of C is written. As C is one tone and a half above A, it follows that notes for the A clarinet are always written a tone and a half higher than the sounds to be produced, and the score-reader must conceive the A clarinet parts as sounding that much lower than they are written. Thus, to get C out of an A clarinet, you must write E flat, and to make an A clarinet play in unison with flutes in the key of C, you must write in E flat for the clarinet. The chord just written would have to be rewritten thus:
One of the peculiarities of orchestra scores is that music for horns and trumpets is always written without any key signature—that is, just as if it were in C major—and all the sharps and flats are put in as accidentals. This makes difficult reading at times for an amateur. In order to aid the music-lover I give herewith the written notes and the corresponding real sounds of the horn in F, which is the most frequently used. The same table will answer for the trumpet in F.