1—Conductor’s harpsichord.  7—Oboes.
2—Second harpsichord.8—Flutes.
3—Violoncelli.a—Violas.
4—Double-basses.b—Bassoons.
5—First Violins.c—Horns.
6—Second Violins.d—Trumpets and drums on platforms.

The preponderance of bassoons in the Dresden orchestra was due to the fact that it was an opera orchestra, and in it Handelian ideas still prevailed. Haydn, meanwhile, was proceeding along the true symphonic path, and an orchestra of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, tympani, and strings fairly represents the result of his contributions to its development up to the time when Mozart took up the work. It should be added that even Haydn was not sufficiently trustful of his instrumental army to leave it without the weak support of the harpsichord, and he frequently sat at this instrument during the performance of his symphonies and played with the orchestra, with extremely bad effect.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) applied his amazing genius to the development of the orchestra, as well as to all other departments of musical art. His work was rather that of exploring the capacities of the instruments in use than adding new ones to the extant list. That was in keeping with Mozart’s entire career. He was not a reformer; he took what he found and put genuine life into it. He found clarinets, for example, and he illustrated, to the conviction of all subsequent composers, their true place in the orchestra.

Indeed, he made a complete revelation of the powers of wind-instrument choirs in his suites and divertimenti for them, so that Haydn once complained to Kalkenbrenner: “I have only learnt the proper use of wind-instruments in my old age, and now I must pass away without turning my knowledge to account.” Mozart’s three greatest symphonies are those composed in the summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor, and C (“Jupiter”). The E flat is scored for 1 flute, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, tympani, and strings. The G minor is written for 1 flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, and strings, but owing to Mozart’s insight into the effect of combinations, this small orchestra sounds marvellously full and noble. Clarinets were afterward added. The “Jupiter” symphony is scored for 1 flute, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, tympani, and strings.

It will be seen from this that although Mozart established the place of the clarinet, he did not invariably make use of it, while even up to the date of these last symphonies, the trombone had not assumed a position in the symphonic orchestra. Mozart was always moderate in his use of this instrument. In his “Don Giovanni” he reserves his trombones to accompany the ghost of the Commendatore. In “Die Zauberflöte” they are used more freely, as, indeed, they always were in religious or masonic music. In “Die Zauberflöte” Mozart also used basset-horns, the tenor of the clarinet, now obsolete. In fact, at all times in the early and classical periods, a larger array of instruments was called into service in the operatic than in the symphonic orchestra. It is only since the romantic composers began to paint in gorgeous tone-coloring, rather than work out intellectual plans of thematic development, that the symphonic band has equalled the operatic in the variety of its component elements.

The development of the orchestra in the hands of the greatest of all symphonic composers, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), was of immense importance. Beethoven did not add greatly to the array of instruments, but he demonstrated the true relationships of the various bodies, and he enlarged them and their scope according to his desire for greater utterance. In the First Symphony, C major (1800), and the Second, D major (1803), he employs the same orchestra: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, tympani, first and second violins, violas, and basses. It is worthy of note that the ’cello is not specified. In the Third Symphony, “Eroica,” E flat major (1805), he used the same orchestra, except that he added a third horn part and wrote “violoncello e basso.”

It is believed that three horns were employed in the symphonic orchestra for the first time in this work. Mozart used four in “Idomeneo” (1781). The Fourth Symphony, B flat (1807), is a smaller work, and its orchestra is the same as that of the First and Second, except that only one flute is required and the ’cello is named. The great Fifth Symphony, C minor (1808), is scored for 1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contra-bassoon, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, drums, and strings. Sir George Grove notes that “the piccolo, trombones, and contra-fagotto are employed in the finale only, and make their appearance here for the first time in the symphonies. The contra-fagotto was first known to Beethoven in his youth at Bonn, where the Elector’s orchestra contained one. He has employed it also in ‘Fidelio,’ in the Ninth Symphony, and elsewhere.”

The Sixth Symphony, known as the “Pastoral” (1808), is scored for 1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, drums, and strings. The piccolo and trombones were used for special descriptive effects in this work, and when he came to write the great Seventh Symphony (1813), Beethoven employed the same array of instruments as he had in his First and Second symphonies. The same orchestra sufficed for the Eighth Symphony (1814), but the Titanic Ninth (1824) demanded a larger instrumental body. The score calls for 1 piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 1 contra-bassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tympani, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, and strings. Four horns are here used for the first time in the symphonic orchestra, and their introduction completed the development of the classical body of instruments.

When the romantic writers began to advance along the path opened by Beethoven and to seek for broader and more influential emotional expression, they introduced one or two more instruments for special effects. The English horn was known to Bach in its primitive form of oboe da caccia. It was used by Gluck in his “Orfeo” and “Telemacho,” but, as Berlioz notes, without apparent appreciation of its tone-quality. In its modern form it was introduced into the orchestra by Rossini in “William Tell” (1829), and Meyerbeer in “Robert le Diable” (1831). Modern symphonic writers use it freely. Its employment in their music is probably due to the demonstration of its utility by the eminent French composer, Hector Berlioz (1803-69), who had a truly wonderful insight into the powers of all orchestral instruments, and who laid down the principles of the post-Beethovenian style of orchestral writing. We find Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and other immediate followers of Beethoven using precisely the same orchestra, sometimes with two horns and sometimes with four, and seldom without trombones, throughout an entire work. Berlioz, however, began at once to give variety to the instrumental body. For instance, so small a work as his arrangement for orchestra of Weber’s “Invitation à la Valse” is scored for 1 piccolo, 1 flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 1 cornet, 1 trumpet, 3 trombones, 2 harps, tympani, and strings. The harp, as we have noted, had been used in the opera, but Berlioz was the first to explore its possibilities. Many of Berlioz’s other advances in the use of orchestral instruments were owing to the introduction, in 1832, of the system of boring and keying wind-instruments invented by Theobald Boehm. This system vastly increased the agility of these instruments and improved their intonation.