To the
Philharmonic Society of New York
which has maintained through fifty-seven years its
existence as an orchestra devoted to the
performance of artistic music
Preface
This is not a text-book. It is not a treatise on instrumentation. It is not written for musicians, nor primarily for students of music, though the latter may find in it information of some value to them. This is simply an attempt to give to music lovers such facts about the modern orchestra as will help them in assuming an intelligent attitude toward the contemporaneous instrumental body and its performances. The author has endeavored to put before the reader a description of each instrument with an illustration which will enable him to identify its tone when next heard in the delivery of the passage quoted. Some account of the distinctive nature and functions of the strings, the wood, the brass, and the percussion instruments has been given. With this account go hand in hand some remarks on the development of methods of scoring. The reader will not find such historical matter in any other book with which the present writer is acquainted. Neither will he find anywhere else a history of the development of the conductor, which is given in this volume. The author has endeavored to make his work complete by describing the duties of the conductor and the requisites of good orchestral playing, and by recounting briefly the story of the growth of the orchestra and the development of its music. All other books on the orchestra which the author has seen are for the professional musician. In making one for the amateur of music the writer hopes to supply a need.
Contents
| Part I | ||
| How the Orchestra is Constituted | ||
| Page | ||
| I. | Instruments Played with the Bow | [ 3] |
| II. | Wind-Instruments of Wood | [19] |
| III. | Wind-instruments of Brass | [30] |
| IV. | Other Instruments | [37] |
| V. | The Orchestral Score | [43] |
| Part II | ||
| How the Orchestra is Used | ||
| VI. | General Principles | [61] |
| VII. | The Strings | [66] |
| VIII. | The Wood-Wind | [81] |
| IX. | The Brass and the “Battery” | [97] |
| X. | Qualities of Good Orchestration | [113] |
| XI. | Qualities of Orchestral Performance | [124] |
| Part III | ||
| How the Orchestra is Directed | ||
| XII. | Development of the Conductor | [147] |
| XIII. | Functions of the Conductor | [164] |
| Part IV | ||
| How the Orchestra Grew | ||
| XIV. | From Peri to Handel | [181] |
| XV. | From Haydn to Wagner | [198] |
| Part V | ||
| How Orchestral Music Grew | ||
| XVI. | From Bach to Haydn | [217] |
| XVII. | From Beethoven to Richard Strauss | [226] |
| Index | [235] | |
Portraits
| Beethoven | [Frontispiece] |
| FACING PAGE | |
| Arthur Nikisch | [48] |
| Haydn | [86] |
| Wagner | [114] |
| Charles Lamoureux | [128] |
| Theodore Thomas | [142] |
| Hans Richter | [162] |
| Berlioz | [208] |
PART I
How the Orchestra is Constituted