Chapter IV: Part II: How the Orchestra is Used (1)

VI

General Principles

The orchestra is an instrument, and composers have developed methods of writing for it. The fundamental principles of these methods constitute that branch of musical art called orchestration. It is not the purpose of the present volume to teach that branch; but it is entirely within its province to point out to the reader how composers make use of their majestic and many-voiced instrument. In compass and power alone it surpasses all other instruments. The compass of the modern orchestra is enormous. It extends from grave, low sounds to those of such acute pitch that the ear does not relish them if uttered loudly. The extreme normal compass is shown by the following illustration:

[Music]

Mr. Corder, in his “Modern Orchestra and How to Write for It,” gives this interesting dynamic scale: “Suppose the degrees of sound-intensity to range from 1 (in _ppp_) to 12 (in _fff_); then one might say roughly that

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Violins have a range
of from _ppp_ — _mp_ — — — _mf_ — — _fff_ — —
The other strings _ppp_ — — — — — — —_fff_ — — —
Clarinets on high
notes — — _ppp_ — — — —_fff_ — — — —
Clarinets low, flutes,
oboes, and bassoons — — _ppp_ — — —_fff_ — — —
Horns — _ppp_ — — — — — — _fff_ — — —
Trumpets, trombones,
and drums _ppp_ — — — — — — — — — — _fff_
Harps — — _ppp_— — _fff_ — — — — — —

I should modify this by shifting the pianissimo of low clarinet tones back to 2, that of drums forward to 2, and that of trumpets and trombones to 4.

Now, if there were nothing else to be considered, a composer would have to work according to some system in using the compass and force of his orchestra. What is known in regard to the method of doing so is the result of many long years of experiment by the early writers. In a general way, I may say that composers in writing a passage for the entire orchestra can give the melody to all the soprano instruments, the alto to all that have an alto compass, the tenor to all the tenors, and the bass to all the basses. For example--flutes, clarinets, oboes, and violins may utter a melody in unison, while the remaining instruments supply the accompaniment. But it is rare that a composer writes in only four parts for orchestra. He usually spreads his chords out to six or eight parts, thus gaining in richness and sonority of tone.

But compass and power are not all the composer must consider. He has at his command a great variety of tonal qualities. We have already seen how the characteristics of certain instruments, singing as solo voices, are peculiarly suited to the embodiment of special kinds of music. Now the writer for orchestra must study the result of every possible combination of all or any of the instruments to the end that he may produce just the desired tone, and that he may never produce anything different from that which he wishes. The tonal tints of a modern orchestra are the richest pigments of the musician’s palette, and he must know how to use them either singly or combined, just as the painter knows how to use his colors. The simplest way in which I can point out the peculiarities of the composer’s work is by discussing separately the uses of the different choirs.

The principal requirements of good orchestration are solidity, balance of tone, contrast, and variety. Solidity is obtained by a proper dispersal of the harmony, so that certain notes in the chords do not stand out too prominently at the expense of others. The composer must not only be a master of harmony, but he must have the true harmonic feeling. He must have that almost instinctive grasp of the proportions of chords which can come only from real musical gifts cultivated by long familiarity with modern music. This feeling is not necessarily accompanied by restlessness and complexity of harmony. The harmonic effect of a simple diatonic Bach chorale is infinitely grander than the most intricate chromatic convolutions of a Charbrier overture. The true harmonic feeling is one that always produces artistic proportions, and these will permeate the instrumentation and produce solidity, provided the composer has sufficient intimacy with the instruments to prevent him from giving them the wrong notes. The foundation of solidity in orchestration is good writing for the strings. Their part of the score must always be planned with complete harmonic skill, not only because they are the main prop of the whole instrumental body, but because the man who cannot write well for strings will inevitably fail in handling wood and brass.

Solidity in tutti passages merges itself in balance of tone. This depends also upon a proper dispersal of the harmony and on a knowledge of the relative power of the instruments of the three choirs. For instance, it is not possible to play wood as softly as strings. Consequently, in a pianissimo the composer must know just what wood instruments to use and what parts of the chord to give them, lest he overbalance his strings. Solidity requires great skill in writing the middle voices. If they are too strong, the orchestration is muddy; if they are too weak, it is thin, and the orchestra, as the saying goes, is “all top and bottom.”

Contrast is necessary in order that monotony of color may be avoided. It is obtained by using the three choirs of the orchestra separately, by employing any subdivision of each, or using simultaneously subdivisions of two, and so on. Variety is produced by mixing the tints. For example, a passage played by a flute alone changes color when an oboe sings in unison with the flute. Another tint results when a clarinet is added. It is not necessary to pursue this topic further than to say that the composer must know what tints will mix well to produce a new one.

VII

The Strings

Since the foundation of good orchestration is skilful writing for the strings, it is natural to consider that department first. The strings, as we shall see, came to their proper place in the orchestra in the works of the operatic composers. In Cavalli’s “Giasone” (1649) we find vocal parts accompanied in something like the Handelian style by two violins and a bass. About twenty-five years later we find the string quartet, two violins, viola, and bass, established by Alessandro Scarlatti, founder of the Neapolitan school of opera. Since that time the strings have been the foundation of the orchestra, and although methods of writing for them have greatly changed, the fundamental principles remain the same.

The general disposition of the strings may be fairly expressed by the formula already given, but worth repeating here: First violins equal sopranos, second violins equal altos, violas equal tenors, ’cellos equal barytones, and double-basses equal basses. In certain circumstances this disposition is altered, because the compass of violas makes it possible for them to sing soprano music, though with a distinctly individual tone, while the ’cello can cover the ordinary range of an entire quartet. The individuality of tone possessed by the various stringed instruments is tolerably well known, except in the case of the viola. It is to its beautiful quality of tone that it owes its chief value. Gloomy, sombre, and even foreboding in the lower register, in its upper range it becomes mellow, tender, pathetic, and inexpressibly winning. No wonder that Berlioz selected it for the voice of the melancholy Childe Harold, or that Brahms made it play such important parts in his quartets. Its dramatic power is now universally recognized by composers, and from the position of a misunderstood and ignored member of the string quintet, it is rapidly advancing to the equally undesirable condition of being severely overworked.

It is a curious fact, however, that many of the younger composers show a singular want of skill in using the viola, and it is this which often upsets the balance of their orchestration. Perhaps this is due in some measure to the Brahms cult. Brahms’s orchestration is not a good model. His middle parts are almost always written too low or too heavily, and hence his instrumentation is muddy. It depends upon what a man is writing. If he is writing a symphony in the classic style, let him follow as closely as possible the methods of Beethoven. If he wishes to be more modern--and it is natural that he should--let him study Dvořák, whose instrumentation is almost perfect. Tschaikowsky’s is, too, but the reader should remember that most of his works are sombre in thought, and that hence the instrumental style will not be suitable to light themes. Liszt and Rubinstein are good models. For thick, luscious coloring there is nothing better than Rubinstein’s “Antony and Cleopatra” overture, and I can recommend also a careful study of Goldmark’s overtures. Wagner, of course, is full of instruction, but a composer must know a good deal before he can discriminate sufficiently to get any benefit from Wagner. But to return to the viola.

The placing of the viola part is of the greatest importance in the color of the strings. For instance, in the slow movement of the famous piano concerto in E flat, called the “Emperor,” Beethoven mutes his violins, but not his violas, and writes the basses pizzicati, thus:

[Music]

The individuality and penetrating quality of the viola tone brings it out with marked effect in this passage, and Beethoven knew that so well that in the third measure he kept his second violins down and gave the violas the real alto part, because the harmonic significance of the passage rested so largely upon the F sharp, E sharp, E, and D sharp. If the second violin and viola parts in that passage were exchanged, the effect would be altogether different.

The increase of skill in the treatment of viola and ’cello parts, but chiefly of the former, is coincident with the development of the science of orchestration. Indeed, it may fairly be said that first-rate writing for the strings, which is the foundation of orchestration, depends largely upon the treatment of the viola part. Any composer knows enough when writing for strings to give his melody to the first violins and his bass to the basses. But the character of his harmony is to be determined by his middle voices, and it is in the treatment of these that we see growth in skill. Berlioz, in his treatise on instrumentation, says of the viola: “It has, nevertheless, been long neglected, or put to a use as unimportant as ineffectual--that of merely doubling, in octave, the upper part of the bass. There are many causes that have operated to induce the unjust servitude of this noble instrument. In the first place, the majority of the composers of the last century, rarely writing in four real parts, scarcely knew what to do with it; and when they did not readily find some filling-up notes in the chords for it to do, they hastily wrote the fatal ‘col basso’--sometimes with so much inattention that it produced a doubling in the octave of the basses, irreconcilable either with the harmony or the melody or with both one and the other. Moreover, it was unfortunately impossible at that time to write anything for the violas of a prominent character, requiring even ordinary skill in execution. Viola-players were always taken from among the refuse of violinists. When a musician found himself incapable of creditably filling the place of violinist, he took refuge among the violas.”

Haydn’s symphonic scores show skill coupled with restraint in the viola parts. The instrument is never called upon to play passages of any difficulty except when errors will be covered up in the general body of tone. But in his scores the viola takes its correct place in a pure four-part harmony. It is seldom that Haydn undertakes to give his strings more than four parts to sing, though the reader will perceive that as each instrument is easily capable of producing two notes at a time, eight real parts can be written for a string quartet. The ’cello has few independent passages in Haydn’s symphonies. It usually doubles the bass part. Mozart, without attempting to give the viola or the ’cello difficulties to overcome, made wider use of their special tone-qualities than did Haydn, though it must be admitted that Mozart’s symphonies show a great deal of three-part writing for strings. Gluck, in his operas, brought out the dramatic value of the lower register of the viola, and Spontini, in “La Vestale,” was the first who assigned the melody to it. Méhul, the French opera-writer, used it so much that Grétry exclaimed, “I’d give a guinea to hear a first string.” Beethoven, in the andante of his fifth symphony, gives the melody in the opening bars to the violas and ’cellos in unison, a very rich and beautiful effect.

In general it may be said that the string quintet did not attain the full measure of its usefulness in the hands of the classical writers till the viola and the ’cello had begun to be treated with freedom and independence. Then there was no longer any difficulty in writing a full four-part harmony, upon which depends the solidity of the string portion of the score. The best test of scoring for strings is to consider whether it sounds full and self-sustaining when unsupported by any wind-instruments. The lover of orchestral music should give especial attention to Beethoven’s scores. Here he will find the perfection of the classical style of writing, which employed almost exclusively a four-part scheme and kept each instrument in its normal place except when used as a solo voice. With the romantic movement scoring for strings began its search after unusual tone-tints, and composers began to learn that they could obtain these in two or three ways--by increasing the number of voices in their harmony, by taking advantage of the large registers of violas and ’cellos and sometimes carrying them above the violins, and by employing solo instruments among the orchestral mass. The beautiful effect of divided string parts in a simple form is heard in the opening measures of Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” overture, but if the reader desires to find the extreme modern style of writing for numerous voices in the strings he must go to Wagner. He, indeed, is guilty of occasional abuses of the practice. In the accompaniment to _Brangäne’s_ song of warning in the second act of “Tristan und Isolde” he divides the strings into fifteen parts, but I am quite sure that no human ear can hear all of them. It is seldom that more than eight real parts can be made advantageous, and then chiefly in slow movements.

It all depends upon what the composer wishes to accomplish. If he desires brilliancy in an animated movement, he will use his first violins in unison and above the middle of their register. If he wishes to get more brilliancy, he will write them still higher and double them with the second violins in the octave below. If he writes them in the middle register and doubles them with the second violins, he will get more sonority, but less brilliancy. On the other hand, if he desires richness of harmony coupled with mystery, or ethereal effects, let him divide his strings into several parts. After that it is a mere matter of register. If he writes high, he will get aërial delicacy and tenderness; if he writes low, he will get pathos as well as tenderness. No better examples can be offered than these from “Lohengrin” and “Die Walküre:”

[Music]

[Music]

But, after all, these effects are special, and the fundamental principles of sound writing for the strings are best exemplified by the writings of the classical composers. The chief question for the student of music is: Which of the classical writers is the best model? This is a question not easily answered. Haydn’s earlier works are not at all to be commended, while his later compositions are full of sound scoring. His quartets are not excelled as examples of clear, well-balanced writing for strings, but his symphonies do not reveal fully the value of the viola.

Specific instrumental coloring began with Mozart, and yet he is the finest example of continence and sobriety in orchestration. His string parts are generally substantial and well planned, but, nevertheless, I should hardly advise a beginner to study them. The older composers are like ancient history; one must have sufficient information to know what to accept and what to reject in order to read them with advantage. It will not profit any beginner in instrumentation to go farther back than Beethoven. The great symphonist’s string plan is always notable for its breadth, solidity, and flexibility, and there is nothing in the fundamental work of string writing which cannot be learned from him. But there is another composer whose works are neglected by professors and masters, and yet whose orchestration excels all other in the classic school in buoyancy, clarity, suavity, and polish, and to the constant study of his scores I heartily commend all who desire to master the basis of modern instrumentation. I mean Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. His “Midsummer Night’s Dream” is in itself an epitome of the science of instrumentation, and students and amateurs would do well to give many days and nights to its study.

I advise the student of orchestral effects to examine particularly the overture. For lightness and transparency nothing in the way of writing for the strings excels the opening measures for first and second violins in four parts, with the addition at bar 24 of a most effective pizzicato passage for viola. On page 5 (Litolff score) the first violins, doubled an octave below by the second, carry the melody against a tutti in which the string plan is notable for its simplicity and solidity. On page 9 there is a model passage for strings with violas divided, which is worthy of attention. A concert-goer should seek out such passages in scores and mark them. Then at a performance of the work note the effect. By following out such a plan the music-lover will soon come to perceive the differences between the conservative scoring of the early classical writers and the venturesome and brilliant achievements of the moderns. From such a clear and simple plan of dividing strings as that of Mendelssohn in the overture quoted grew the amazing contrivances of modern writers, such as the passage in Liszt’s “Mazeppa” for first violins in three parts, the third playing pizzicato against shakes by the other two, second violins in three parts, violas and ’celli in two each; or the thunder-storm in Wagner’s “Das Rheingold,” where the strings play a broken chord in twenty different ways, or the superbly effective passage from Nicode’s “Das Meer,” which is constructed on this scheme of divided strings with contrary motions:

[Music]

[Music]

The effect of this remarkable passage is one of the things which go to show what can be done in the way of tone-coloring with strings alone. The vital points for the reader to bear in mind are those which have been brought out as to the distribution of the harmony in the strings and the necessity of writing for them so that they are independent. To follow the development of skill in this among the successive composers is one of the most fascinating branches of musical study.

NOTE.--The tremolo and pizzicato of bowed instruments
were invented by Monteverde (1568-1643). The
striking of chords on such instruments was
introduced into orchestral music by Haydn. Mutes
were first used in the orchestra by Gluck in his
“Armide.” The oldest and most familiar example of
the contrast between muted and unmuted strings is
found in the “Creation” at the words, “And God said
‘Let there be light.’” The mutes are taken off at
“And there was light.” The oldest known use of
harmonics is that in Philidor’s opera “Tom Jones”
(1765). The division of violins into more than
two parts was first employed by Weber. Beethoven
introduced divided violas in the last movement of
the Ninth Symphony.

VIII

The Wood-Wind

Whence originated the custom of calling the collection of wooden wind-instruments used in the modern orchestra “the wood-wind,” I am quite sure I do not know. It is still more common among musicians to speak of them simply as “the wood,” notwithstanding that the stringed instruments played with a bow are also made of wood. It is a convenient term, and its meaning being pretty generally understood, only a purist in language would object to its employment. The “wood,” then, in the modern orchestra consists of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Of these instruments the flute is the oldest, and was the first to be used in those indiscriminate assemblies of instruments corresponding to orchestras in the early days of the art. The flute was used in ancient Egypt, and, for the matter of that, so was the oboe, which found its way into the orchestra at least as far back as Beaujoyeux’s “Ballet Comique de la Reine” (1581). Everyone knows a flute when he sees it, and is acquainted with its tone, but I have learned by experience that very few persons know anything about the other wood instruments.

Yet their importance in the modern orchestra cannot be overestimated. Half the tone-coloring of our symphonic works and operatic scores depends upon skilful combinations of the tone-tints of wooden wind-instruments either with one another or with other members of the band. It is almost wholly in the direction of variety of combination that the art of writing for wood-wind has developed. In the early days, before a system of enriched instrumentation had been developed, it was the custom to treat the wood-wind parts without any design that affected the display of their coloring qualities. Sebastian Bach’s scores, for instance, show a complete absorption of the polyphonic style. He regarded his instruments as so many voices, and he treated them as such. Each part was written in a manner essentially melodious, and related to the other parts strictly in contrapuntal style. The conception of purely orchestral effect did not find birth in the mind of Bach. He was too entirely occupied with the development of the polyphonic subject to discover the possibilities of mixed tone-tints. Furthermore, he was not sufficiently imbued with a feeling for the harmonic style--the style in which a leading melody is supported by a subsidiary accompaniment founded on chords, as in our songs. This is the style on which our symphony rests, but it was foreign to Bach’s genius, which was fundamentally fugal.

Hence, Bach did little toward developing the combining powers of the wood-wind. As one writer has excellently said: “He preferred to employ wind-instruments for the purpose of enlarging his original design, rather than that of strengthening or decorating it. When he added a flute or an oboe to his score, he loved not only to make it _obbligato_, but to write it in such wise that it should form a new real part. Hence, even in his regularly constructed arias, the voice is scarcely so much accompanied by the various instruments employed as made to sing in concert with them, the score containing as many real parts as there are solo voices or instruments introduced into it.” Dr. Parry, in his “Evolution of the Art of Music,” in speaking of the difference between instrumentation of this kind and that of a later date, says: “In the instrumentation of the great masters of the earlier generation, the tone-qualities seem to be divided from one another by innate repulsion; but in the harmonic style they seem to melt into one another insensibly, and to become part of a composite mass of harmony whose shades are constantly shifting and varying.”

Handel’s wood-wind is employed with greater variety than Bach’s. This was to be expected of a composer who, in the first place, was in closer touch with the public, and hence more likely to recognize and yield to the demand for effects. In the second place, Handel, not being secluded as Bach was, stood more forward in the march of musical evolution. He was an opera-writer, and this brought him into immediate contact with the harmonic style as practised by the Italian opera-writers. He learned from some of them, too, the use of grandiose mass effects. The application of these ideas to his instrumentation produced results far different from any conceived by the introspective and historically solitary genius of the great Bach. Handel used a larger orchestra than Bach, yet did many things in the same way. For example, he often wrote for his instruments in the polyphonic style, but in the accompaniments to his great choruses he wrote for several oboes in unison with the violins and a body of bassoons in unison with the basses. At other times he treated his wood-wind parts as figured ornamentation of the more simple string parts, and again he employed the strings and wind alternately, as modern composers do so frequently. Flutes he rarely used except as solo instruments, as in the “Sweet Bird” aria, and clarinets he did not have. But the idea of using some of the wind-instruments, as horns and trumpets, in pairs, had come into existence in Handel’s time, and it was not long before this plan was applied also to the wood-wind.

Its employment naturally began with the recognition of the inability of the wood-wind to play such intricate passages as strings could, and also of their power to sustain the long notes of supporting chords. These features of wood-wind writing existed even in the scores of Scarlatti and Lulli, but it was not until the harmonic style began to be clearly distinguished from the polyphonic in orchestral works that they became generally recognized. In the scores of Emmanuel Bach, the son of Sebastian, we begin to find wood-wind treated in the pure classic style. The chords, to be sure, are very thin, and the composer shows a “’prentice hand” at the dovetailing of his wind parts together so as to make a firm structure, but the skeleton of the modern form is there.

Haydn’s scoring shows a curious combination of Handelian ideas with later developments. The Handelian plan of strengthening string parts with wind parts in unison seems to have taken some hold of Haydn, for he rarely writes unsupported wood-wind passages in his symphonies. He keeps his first violins singing the melody most of the time, and gets variety by doubling them, now with flutes, now with oboes, again with bassoons. A wind solo is very rare. He shows similar weakness in writing for the wood-wind in its internal relations. His clarinet parts usually double those of the oboes or the flutes. There is a great deal of octave writing, and he seldom gets more than three real parts in his wood-wind. It is only because he so constantly employs the string quartet that his symphonic scores do not sound thin. For example, in a passage for wood-wind and strings near the beginning of the familiar symphony in D, the first flute, except in one chord, doubles the second violin at the octave above, while the second flute supports the principal notes of the melody, played by the first violins, at the octave below. The oboes in unison double the violas at the upper octave. The two clarinets in unison double the first flute an octave below. The bassoons and basses play in unison. Toward the end of the last movement there is a passage in which the wind plays sustained chords, and in this the wood is treated in a more open style of harmony. Haydn learned much from Mozart, however, and in the “Creation” and “Seasons,” his writing for wood-wind shows much greater freedom, and a decidedly more definite attempt to get at the tonal characteristics of the instruments.

There can be no question that Mozart’s orchestration shows a large improvement on Haydn’s, and it is, perhaps, easier for the amateur to discern this in his treatment of the wood-wind than anywhere else. Passages contrasting the whole wood-choir with the strings are more numerous, and the combinations of wood with strings show more definite attempts to put new tints upon the symphonic canvas. One finds, for instance, in the G minor symphony the flute tone contrasted with the oboe, combinations of flute and oboe contrasted with bassoon, combinations of flutes, bassoon, and strings, and other effects which give life and variety to the instrumental coloring.

Nevertheless, a conventional manner of treating the wood-wind found its way into general use, and it prevailed until the romanticists, in reaching out for new forms and manners of expression, revolutionized the system of scoring. The old-fashioned way was to employ the four pairs of wood-wind instruments always in thirds and sixths. The flutes almost always took the melody and the next interval below it. The oboes either doubled the flutes in the octave below, or the first oboe doubled the second flute, and the second oboe took the next lower degree of the chord. The clarinets filled in the middle voices, and the bassoons played the bass, most frequently in octaves. The harmony was close, and the texture of this instrumentation was always solid, and, it must be admitted, at times muddy. This manner of writing is found in all Beethoven’s earlier works. For example, here is the opening of the first symphony, the horns and strings (pizzicati) also appearing in the score:

[Music]

That is perfectly adapted to its purpose; but the chances are that a composer of to-day would have used three flutes, three clarinets, and three bassoons, and would have thickened the harmony by raising the clarinet voices and bringing the first bassoon up nearer the middle, thus:

[Music]

Brahms followed Beethoven’s early style of scoring for wood, which, it must always be recollected, lies at the foundation of the art. An example from Brahms’s C minor symphony will show the modern writer’s adoption of his predecessor’s plan:

[Music]

The modern style of writing for the wood-wind choir introduces more passages in contrary motion and a more dispersed harmony. The close chords of the classicists cannot be excelled for their purpose, but the romanticists had new aims and they took advantage not only of unusual tone-tints but of the increased richness brought about by using more voices and extending their chords. Beethoven’s symphonies show a rapid progress toward the modern flexibility of methods in writing for wood-wind. For instance, note the lovely effect of this piece of contrary motion in the Fifth Symphony:

[Music]

As we advance through the pages of the master’s symphonies we find a constantly increasing flexibility in the treatment of the wood, until in the Ninth we meet with passages containing effects which, when closely examined, seem to be almost amazingly modern. Of course, one never finds in Beethoven’s scores any attempt to make an effect for its own sake. The master symphonist was altogether too busy in giving his thought expression to think of little tricks of instrumental dress. Because of his continence in this matter some modern commentators have expressed the belief that these symphonies would be improved if re-orchestrated according to contemporaneous methods. I presume that someone will eventually try the experiment, and then it will be discovered that Beethoven’s instrumentation was perfectly adapted to his musical ideas. On the other hand, a good deal of our modern music would stand revealed in its naked thinness if it were re-orchestrated in the austere style of Beethoven or with the sunny simplicity of the Mozartian manner. The extreme development of wood-wind writing as known in our day is to be found in the scores of Wagner. No one has surpassed his treatment of the wood in his earlier dramas, and the reader may accept _Elsa’s_ entrance to the cathedral in Act II. of “Lohengrin,” and the exit of _Elizabeth_ in Act III. of “Tannhäuser,” as complete expositions of writing for the unsupported wood-wind. In the introduction to the third act of “Lohengrin” appears this passage, which shows how Wagner could use his wood in relation to the rest of his orchestra:

[Music]

[Music]

The reader will at once see the open style in which the wood-wind parts are constructed. The horns serve to enrich and deepen the harmony, while the strings are used chiefly for a rhythmic effect. Weber’s scoring is full of admirable writing for the wood-wind, and for other fine examples I can once more refer the reader to Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music.

The immense variety of coloring to be obtained from the wood is due largely to its power of producing independent harmony. Owing to the large register of the clarinets, they can be used as either soprano or low contralto instruments, while the wide scale of the bassoons permits them to be treated as basses, barytones, or tenors. It thus becomes possible to write in full and euphonious four-part harmony for two flutes and two clarinets, two oboes and two clarinets, two flutes and two bassoons, two oboes and two bassoons, or two clarinets and two bassoons. Each of these combinations differs in color from the others. If now a bass clarinet be added, it becomes possible to give it the fundamental bass and to use the bassoons for middle voices. The addition of an English horn gives further possibilities. If the number of flutes, clarinets, and bassoons be increased to three of each, the composer has still more combinations. And when it is recollected that every one of these wind-instruments can be used as a solo voice, the range of variety becomes wider yet. But the reader must also bear in mind that the addition of horns and strings still further alters the tonal colors. In short, the wood-wind provides the most useful means of giving variety of color to an orchestral score, and all modern writing abounds in ingenious, surprising, and expressive effects made with the wood choir. Yet when the thunder of an orchestral tutti is required, there is no better way to write for wood than that of Beethoven’s symphonies.

I have said nothing yet in this chapter about the piccolo and the contra-fagotto. The piccolo is a much misused instrument, but it is capable of admirable effects, as may be seen in the storm in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony, the magic fire-music in “Die Walküre,” or the “Dance of the Automatons” in Delibes’s “Sylvia” ballet. The double-bassoon, or contra-fagotto, allows the composer to carry the bass of his wood-wind choir an octave lower than the compass of the bassoon. The instrument is coarse in tone and not capable of performing rapid passages, but it has its value, as is shown by its employment in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Brahms’s “Chorale St. Anthony” variations. A double-bass clarinet has been invented by a New York musician. I have not heard this instrument, but am told by competent judges that it is of high value. It carries the bass an octave lower than the bass clarinet, and is capable of great agility and of the finest gradations of tone. Richard Strauss, Weingartner, and other German musicians have promised to introduce it in future scores, and I dare say it will become a fixture in the orchestra. The great value of the clarinet color to the orchestra cannot be overestimated, and any increase in its range and intensity will surely be welcomed by composers.

IX

The Brass and the “Battery”

The brass choir may be dismissed with comparative brevity, because methods of writing for it have changed on lines similar to those followed by the wood. In the early scores one finds that the trumpets were the most noticeable members of the brass, but in later music the horns are far and away the most important. It is possible to get almost any amount of richness, solidity, and variety of color out of an orchestra composed of the wood-wind, four horns, and strings; but if two trumpets and three trombones be substituted for the horns, the ingenuity of the composer will be severely taxed to prevent his work from sounding coarse in forte passages. One reason for this is that, when played moderato, horns blend perfectly with either wood or strings, and when played forte they become brassy in tone and can be made to give a good imitation of trombones. Let the reader note, when he again hears the prelude to the third act of “Lohengrin,” that the brass theme is played the first time by the horns, which sound like trombones robbed of their roughness. The second time the theme is heard the trombones enter and the tone at once becomes brassy. In fact, it may be said at once that the brassy quality of brass instruments comes out fully only when the tone is forced. When it sings moderato the brass choir is capable of the most beautiful effects of rich, organ-like sonority. One has only to recall as a perfect example of this the prayer in the first act of “Lohengrin,” one of the most effective of all modern pieces of writing for brass. When however, immense sonority is required, the fortissimo of the brass choir is the composer’s heavy gun.

The treatment of the trumpet parts in the works of Bach and Handel will be found to differ greatly from the modern manner of writing for them. In the first place, the instruments employed by those composers must have had mouth-pieces of a different kind from those of to-day, or else the players knew some things which ours do not. Both Bach and Handel wrote passages for the trumpet so high that contemporaneous musicians cannot perform them. But that is a fact of less importance to the reader of the present book than the general principle of the scoring. The old composers, then, wrote for trumpets in pairs and made them do a great deal of their work in octaves, except in some of the earliest scores, in which three trumpets were sometimes employed. Even Monteverde wrote for one clarino (a small trumpet), three trombe (the ordinary trumpet), and four tromboni. Handel used three trumpets in the “Dettingen Te Deum,” and Bach in the “Lobe den Herrn.”

Haydn used the trumpets, horns, and drums in the primitive style. The parts were written either in octaves or in sixths--occasionally in thirds--and on tonic and dominant chords, worked with the drums chiefly to enforce the tutti. Passages such as the following abound in Haydn’s symphonies:

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It seems hardly possible to contrive a more hollow plan of writing than that which gives to five instruments only three notes of a chord (though the horn parts actually sound an octave lower), yet it is a method which survived till Beethoven’s time, and, so far as the trumpets go, even the mighty Ludwig made no improvement upon it. Mozart’s scores show a very slight advance upon Haydn’s. He more frequently gives three notes of the chord to the brass instruments, but he uses them in the same general way. Of course, these old composers were much restricted by the mechanical limitations of their instruments. They had the old keyless horns and trumpets, and not having the whole scale at their command, they had to write with much restraint. In the horn parts they were further compelled to remember that certain notes could be produced only in the “stopped” form, that is, by the use of one hand inserted in the bell of the instrument. These stopped notes differed wholly in quality from the open tones. This trouble lasted until the F valve horn was perfected within the present century. Before that, however, composers had begun to endeavor to give more variety to the horn parts. Weber and Beethoven both made admirable use of this, the most noble and expressive of the brass instruments, and the scores of Rossini also contain some excellent specimens of horn writing. Rossini, indeed, who was the son of a horn-player, may be said to have introduced a new style of writing for the instrument, treating it with great brilliancy as a florid solo singer. But the substantial principles of horn writing, as practised in the modern orchestra, began with Mozart, who used the instrument with much skill, especially in those scores which do not call for trumpets. Beethoven made more exacting demands upon the instrument, and there is no more effective horn passage in existence than the famous trio of the scherzo in the “Eroica” symphony. The passage is too long for quotation here, but is, of course, familiar to every music-lover. As an example of perfect writing for a solo horn nothing in symphonic music is better than the opening of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky’s fifth symphony.

The methods of employing horns are so numerous that it is not practicable to recount all of them. It may be said, however, that in small scores, which call for wood-wind, two horns and strings, these instruments are often used to form chords with either the wind or the strings. Two horns and two bassoons make very effective harmony; in fact, when the four instruments are played moderato it is almost impossible to distinguish the bassoons from the horns. The latter also blend excellently with clarinets or the low tones of flutes. In writing for four horns some composers give the two upper notes of the chord to the first and second and the two lower to the third and fourth, while others dovetail the parts by giving the first and third notes to the first and second horns. Of course, either method is subject to variation, as in a passage like this:

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Here the dovetailing of parts is carried throughout, yet in the third bar the third and fourth horns double the fundamental bass in octaves.

The trombone is a very familiar instrument, and little needs to be added to what has already been said about it. There are slide and valve trombones. The former is the kind always employed in symphonic orchestras. The reader will recognize the instrument by the action of the player’s arm in moving the slide in and out. This shortening and lengthening of the tube of the instrument changes its key and thus enables the player to produce in open tones every note of the chromatic scale. The valve trombone is played with keys like those of a cornet. It is less brilliant and sonorous than the slide instrument. Trombones were employed as far back as Monteverde’s “Orfeo,” early in the seventeenth century, but there seems to have been no definite use of them till the time of Gluck. He thoroughly appreciated the majestic dignity of dramatic utterance of which the trombone was capable, and he used it with eloquent effect. Furthermore, he established for all time the custom of writing for trombones in three parts. After him, as Gevaert pertinently notes, the three trombones became a distinctive feature of dramatic scores, for the classic symphony found no use for their immense sonority till Beethoven called it to his aid in voicing the triumphant emotions of the finale of the Fifth Symphony. Nevertheless, the trombone is not necessarily an instrument to be used only in producing great volumes of tone. A beautiful example of its value in rich and subdued harmony, in company with other instruments, is to be found in the accompaniment to _Sarastro’s_ grand air in Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” as is shown on the following page.

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The three trombones, as in this example, usually play three-note chords, except when required to play in unison. The tuba fills out the harmony by doubling the bass part in the lower octave, or forming a four-part chord with the three trombones. There are tubas in several keys, but it is customary to write for the instrument without making any transposition. There is a fine tuba solo, in unison with the double-basses, at the opening of Wagner’s “Eine Faust” overture, and frequent examples of harmony for three trombones and tuba are to be found in the works of the Bayreuth master. In writing for the full brass choir alone a composer has the choice of several methods. He may give the melody to a trumpet or cornet, and use the other instruments for the harmony, or he may let a horn (or two horns in unison) take the melody. If he desires much force, he may give the melody to a trumpet and double it with a trombone. The natural method, however, is to let a trumpet, which is a good soprano voice, sing the air, while the other trumpet and three of the horns take the middle voices, the fourth horn and first and second trombones the lower middle voices, the third trombone and tuba the bass. Similar methods are employed where the brass joins with the rest of the orchestra in the thunder of a tutti fortissimo. The reader will find a most admirable example of this style of writing in the climax of the prelude to “Lohengrin.”

It should be noted that the brass choir offers certain possibilities of color both within itself and in combination with other instruments. Three trumpets are capable of independent harmony, as are four horns, and three trombones. Again, owing to the deep range of the horn, trumpets and horns may form a separate choir, or either trumpets or horns may be united with trombones. The entire brass band may be used with the wood, the strings being silent, or with the strings and without wood. Part of the brass may be used with part of the wood, as in the opening of the “Tannhäuser” overture, where two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons produce a complete and satisfying harmony. Weird and bizarre effects can be produced by combinations of contrasting tones. Perhaps there is no better example than this remarkable use of flutes and trombones in Berlioz’s “Requiem”:

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These notes had never been written for trombones before, and the composer, whose knowledge of the capacities of instruments has never been excelled, wrote in the margin of the score: “These notes are in the instruments and the players must get them out.”

As I have already noted, the operatic composers, in their search after dramatic effects, invented many of the instrumental combinations afterward adopted by the composers of purely orchestral music. The scores of Mozart and Gluck, for instance, are rich in passages which make use of the harmony of trombones, and the reader who wishes to study such effects in their early form should note the accompaniment to the words of the _Commendatore_ in the cemetery scene of “Don Giovanni,” to the solo and chorus, “Dieu puissant,” Act I., scene 3, of Gluck’s “Alceste,” the air “Divinités du styx” in the same work, and the chorus “Vengeons et la nature,” Act II., scene 4, of “Iphigenie en Tauride.”

All that the moderns can do with trombone harmonies they learned from Gluck, and by applying his use of dispersed chords to the whole brass choir they have produced new and noble orchestral colors. Where did Wagner learn such things as this, if not from Mozart and Gluck?

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Not much needs to be added to that already written about the percussive instruments employed in the orchestra. The tympani remain the most important of these. It has been found that one player can perform upon three drums with little more difficulty than upon two, and hence composers now frequently score for three, and sometimes for four. It is not uncommon for large symphonic scores to call for three tympani together with bass-drum, cymbals, and other percussive instruments. Something has already been said about the methods of writing for tympani, but there is a little to add. It has been noted that the primitive manner of writing was to give one drum the fundamental note of the tonic chord, and the other that of the dominant, but previous to Beethoven’s day it was the invariable practice to write the tonic above and the dominant below, thus tuning the drums at the interval of a fourth. The other style, with the tonic below and the dominant above, making a fifth, was introduced by Beethoven. The same master saw the advantage of tuning his tympani in still other ways, and in the finale of the Eighth Symphony and the scherzo of the Ninth he wrote for them in octaves at their extreme compass (F to F). Again, in the beginning of the last act of “Fidelio,” he wrote their parts in A and E flat in a dissonant passage of much dramatic power. Weber followed Beethoven’s example and wrote for tympani in C and A in the incantation scene of “Der Freischütz,” and Wagner has made a similar use of the drums in the beginning of the third act of “Siegfried.”

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In general, it may be said that until the close of the eighteenth century composers employed tympani only in brilliant passages, such as marches, overtures, jubilant choruses, or hymns of thanksgiving; and in these they were always heard with the trumpets. It was Beethoven who took the shackles from the expressive powers of these valuable instruments and showed how they could be made to utter notes of overpowering solemnity and mystery.

The bass-drum is frequently used in the orchestra either with or without the cymbals, and the latter are often heard without the drum. Both instruments are sadly overworked by noisy composers, yet they have their value. The military snare-drum is used in characteristic passages where a military idea is to be suggested. Tambourines and castanets are also used in appropriate places. The gong, which is said to have found its way into western Europe at the time of the French Revolution, when it was used as a funeral bell, found its way into the opera-house as an aid to music of scenes of death or terror, as in Meyerbeer’s resurrection of the nuns in “Robert le Diable.” It is now used occasionally by the symphonists in passages of portentous significance.

Bells came into the orchestra for dramatic purposes, and are employed in various ways, some of which are so familiar that it is barely necessary to mention them. Handel employed a whole chime in a passage in his “Saul,” and Mozart used a set of little bells in “The Magic Flute.” Meyerbeer has called for a single deep-toned bell to imitate the tocsin of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in “Les Huguenots,” and Wagner has used several in “Parsifal.” The latter composer has used the carillon (little bells) with fine effect in the magic-fire music of “Die Walküre.” The lover of orchestral music needs no special information about bells. They are capable of musical pitch, and their notation is in the treble or bass clef, as the case may be.

The xylophone is sometimes employed in music of an artistic sort. A most excellent example of its possibilities may be found in Saint-Säens’ “Danse Macabre,” where it is supposed to imitate the rattling of bones in the grim dance of Death.

Score-readers will often find the parts for those instruments of percussion which are without musical pitch, such as triangles, cymbals, bass-drums, etc., written not on a stave, but on a single line. The rhythm can be indicated satisfactorily in this way, and that is all that is needed.

X

Qualities of Good Orchestration