WAGNER.
The qualities of good orchestration are solidity, balance of tone, contrast, and variety. By solidity is meant a close warp of the instrumental sounds which does not seem to have holes in it. A chord played by a full orchestra should sound like the utterance of one great instrument, not like the utterance of a number of individuals. The tones of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, brass, and strings should blend into one grand body. When such a result is achieved, whether it be with three instruments or one hundred, the tone is said to be solid. If the tone is not solid, it is because the harmony is not properly dispersed. Either the chords are not written in a sufficiently extended form or they are distributed wrongly among the instruments. The first requirement of solidity is good writing for the strings. It is absolutely necessary that their part should be so written that it is capable of independence; that is, it should sound solid when played without the other instruments. The composer must give each note of a chord to that instrument which is best qualified to utter it, and he must write his chords so that they are suited to orchestral enunciation.
Pianists make sad mistakes when they come to write for orchestra, because they try to write in a piano style. They are so accustomed to seeing a melody in the treble clef and all the accompaniment in the bass, that they frequently fail to find any use for their soprano instruments except the utterance of the melody, while all the barytone and bass instruments grumble a muddy accompaniment, and thus, as musicians say, the orchestra is “all top and bottom.” The illustration below will help to explain what I mean. It shows the first two measures of “Home, Sweet Home,” scored à la pianist, with the orchestra all top and bottom, and as an orchestral writer would spread it out in full harmony and with just a trifle of instrumental effect in the arpeggio for the second clarinet doubled by the ’celli pizzicati, and the basses also written pizzicati to accentuate the attack of each chord.
Even in writing so simple a thing as this, one must keep in mind always the relative tonal powers of the various instruments. For instance, in the second measure the first trumpet should play the B and then descend to the G, because otherwise it would make the upper D too strong and destroy the effect of the melody. The first trombone should do the same thing. The upper D in each chord should go to the first horn and the first bassoon.
Balance of tone is an expression used to indicate a preservation of the equilibrium of power among the three choirs, so that one shall not be heard too clearly at the expense of another. In most instances this depends upon principles similar to those which govern solidity, but it also requires a constant consideration of the sonority of the three choirs regarded as separate bodies. For instance, the wood-wind instruments cannot possibly be played as softly as the strings; hence, if the composer wishes to get a pianissimo effect, he must not write full chords for the wood. Strings, with clarinets or flutes in the lower register, produce an excellent pianissimo. Cornets, on the other hand, cannot play pianissimo along with strings, because their softest tone is louder than that of the strings, and the balance is destroyed. Balance of tone, when all the instruments are playing together, is largely dependent upon the judgment of the conductor. He should see to it, for instance, that his brass instruments do not play too loudly. But it is also a matter of scoring, and frequently a conductor is helpless in the presence of the written page. In the scherzo of Schumann’s E flat symphony there is a passage in which the first theme is given to the clarinets, bassoon, second violins, violas, and ’cellos, while the first violins, trumpets, and horns play chords above them. All are directed to play mezzo-forte, and the result is that the brass chords quite overpower the melody. A similar passage is to be found in the andante of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. No conductor can get a perfect balance of tone out of such passages.
Contrast is obtained by employing instruments of different tone-quality to play the principal parts at different times. A principal melodic idea may be introduced by a trumpet or a clarinet, and continued by flutes or oboes, and finally sung by all the first violins. Sometimes the wood-wind plays alone, to be succeeded by the strings. These alternations of tonal color produce contrasts, without which the richest and most solid scoring might become monotonous. Variety is the result of mixing the tonal tints. For instance, some passages will be written for two flutes, two horns and strings; presently all the strings cease to sound except the first violins, which chant the melody supported by a harmony of brass; now the tone of the clarinets mingles with that of the violins, and the combination of the two produces a new color. Variety is also obtained by giving melodic fragments, not essential parts of the melody, to some of the instruments not engaged in voicing the principal theme. As the author has had occasion to say elsewhere: