Orchestration

An Anthology of Writings

Paul Mathews, Paul Mathews

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781135869342
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music Theory & Appreciation

Orchestration: An Anthology of Writings is designed to be a primary or ancillary text for college-level music majors. Although there are several 'how to' textbooks aimed at this market, there is little available that traces the history of orchestration through the writings of composers themselves. By collecting writings from the ninenteenth century to today, Mathews illuminates how orchestration has grown and developed, as well as presenting a wide variety of theories that have been embraced by the leading practitioners in the field.

The collection then traces the history of orchestration, beginning with Beethoven's Orchestra (with writings by Berlioz, Wagner, Gounod, Mahler, and others), the 19th century (Mahler, Gevaert, Strauss) the fin de siecle (on the edge of musical modernism; writings by Berlioz, Jadassohn, Delius, and Rimsky Korsakov), early modern (Busoni, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Grainger, and others), and high modern (Carter, Feldman, Reich, Brant). Many of these pieces have never been translated into English before; some only appeared in small journals or the popular press and have never appeared in a book; and none have ever been collected in one place.

The study of orchestration is a key part of all students of music theory and composition. Orchestration provides a much needed resource for these students, filling a gap in the literature.

SECTION III

INTERLUDE: ORCHESTRAL POSSIBILITES ON THE EVE OF THE NEW MUSIC

While all writing on orchestral style tends to be subjective, the selections in this section have been grouped because of their technical subject matter. The practical nature of the topics presented in this section tends to be stylistically neutral with regard to the dialectic of French and German orchestration. Taken together they demonstrate an increasingly complex orchestral praxis.

Berlioz’s article on the orchestra, from the end of his Traité, is a broad discussion of orchestral possibilities. However, in his discussion of some rather fanciful prospects — such as an orchestra of 825 musicians — Berlioz reveals much about his very practical approach to orchestration and orchestral effects. Pierre Boulez has cited the importance of this essay, noting, “It is typical of Berlioz’s character, mixing realism and imagination without opposing one to the other, producing the double aspect of an undeniable inventive ‘madness’ — a fairly unreal dream minutely accounted for.”¹

Salomon Jadassohn (1831–1902) is primarily remembered as theorist, but he was a prolific composer who published over 140 works. Instrumentationslehre was the fifth and final volume of his Musikalische Kompositionslehre (1883–9). In the excerpt that follows, Jadassohn explains the construction of an effective orchestral tutti, demonstrated with excerpts from Beethoven’s music. Unlike Berlioz’s essay, which suggests numerous possibilities to be explored, Jadassohn’s chapter is principally concerned with winnowing the possibilities to the few that will provide the greatest clarity. The excerpt provides a revealing glimpse into the pedagogy of orchestration at the Leipzig Conservatory, where Jadassohn’s students included Ferrucio Busoni, George Chadwick, Frederick Delius, Edvard Grieg, Ethel Smythe and Felix Weingartner.

Anatomie et phisiologie de l’orchestre is a short volume written by Delius and Papus.² Delius (1862–1934) had not yet changed his name from Fritz to Frederick and is identified only by his surname. Papus, the pseudonym of Dr. Gerard Encuasse (1865–1916), was at that time already a celebrated author and prominent figure of the occult. Papus did not have any practical musical training and music does not play a role in most of his literary output.³ Anatomie posits a Kabbalistic and an anatomical basis of the orchestra, and as such, is a novel example of the intermingling of music and mysticism on the eve of the twentieth century.⁴ In demonstration of their theses, Delius and Papus present a framework of the orchestra and orchestration that is independent of the other materials of composition. Their divisions of the orchestra are primarily based on timbre and are sufficiently fine as to relate all the instruments of each section into a gradated scale of timbre, with transition instruments separating the more common orchestral instruments.

Nicolay Rimsky-Korsakov (1804–1908) worked intermittently on various drafts of Principles of Orchestration for over twenty years. It was complete, but not entirely edited at his death. Principles was among the first books to treat orchestration primarily as a process of creating textures for large ensembles. Thus, the book was a significant departure from the previous books, especially the well-known works by Berlioz and Gevaert,⁵ which treat orchestration as the developing consequence of instrumentation. In the fourth chapter of Principles, Rimsky-Korsakov describes techniques that had been part of the nineteenth century composer’s repertoire but had not yet been so thoroughly enumerated in print. Many of these techniques, such as dovetailing exits with entrances, timbral modulation, and filling a texture with a neutral “harmonic basis” have remained a vital part of orchestration and are still described in current textbooks in language that can be traced back by Rimsky-Korsakov. However, Rimsky-Korsakov’s decision to use his own music as examples has proved problematic, as many of his opera scores have been hard to obtain and harder to experience in performance or on recordings, especially in the West. And some have noted a certain immodesty implicit in this choice, prompting Ravel to quip that he wished to write an orchestration textbook illustrated with all the mistakes he had made in his own scores.⁶

The Orchestra

From Treatise on Instrumentation

Hector Berlioz, Annotated by Richard Strauss

The Orchestra may be considered a large instrument capable of playing a great number of different tones simultaneously or in succession; its power is moderate or gigantic according to the proportionate use of all or only part of the resources available to the modern orchestra, and according to the more or less propitious application of these resources in relation to acoustic conditions of various type.⁷

The performers of all sorts, constituting together the orchestra, are, so to speak, its strings, tubes, pipes, sounding boards — machines endowed with intelligence, but subject to the action of an immense keyboard played by the conductor under the direction of the composer.

I believe I have already stated my conviction that the invention of beautiful orchestral effects cannot be taught. Although this faculty can be developed by practice and rational observation, it belongs to those precious gifts which the composer, at once a poet and an inspired calculator, must have received from nature, similarly to talent for melody, expression, and even for harmony.

But it is certainly easy to indicate quite precisely how to form an orchestra capable of faithfully rendering compositions in all forms and dimensions.

A distinction should be made between theater and concert orchestras. In certain respects theater orchestras are inferior to concert orchestras.

The placing of the musicians is of great importance; whether they are arranged on a horizontal or an inclined platform, in a space enclosed on three sides, or in the middle of the hall; whether there are reflectors and whether these have hard surfaces (throwing back the sound) or soft ones (absorbing and breaking it); how close the reflectors are to the performers — all this is of extraordinary consequence.

Reflectors are indispensable. They are found, in various forms, in every enclosed place. The closer they are to the source of sound the greater is their effect. This is why there is no such thing as music in the open air. The largest orchestra, playing in a garden open on all sides — such as the Jardin des Tuileries — must remain completely ineffective. Even if it were placed close to the walls of the palace, the reflection would be insufficient; the; sound would be immediately lost in all directions.

An orchestra of a thousand wind instruments and a chorus of two thousand voices, placed in an open plain, would be far less effective than an ordinary orchestra of eighty players and a chorus of a hundred voices arranged in the concert hall of the Conservatoire. The brilliant effect produced by military bands in some streets of big cities confirms this statement, in spite of the seeming contradiction. Here the music is by no means in the open air: the walls of high buildings lining the street on both sides, the avenues of trees, the facades of big palaces, near-by monuments — all these serve as reflectors. The sound is thrown back and remains for some time within the circumscribed space before finally escaping through the few gaps in the enclosure. But as soon as the band reaches an open plain without buildings and trees on its march from the large street, the tones diffuse, the orchestra disappears, and there is no more music.

The best way of placing an orchestra in a hall sufficiently large for the number of players used, is to arrange them in rows one above the other on a series of steps in such a fashion that each row can send its tones to the listeners without any intervening obstacles. Every well-directed orchestra should thus be arranged in echelons. If it plays on the stage of a theater the scene should be enclosed by wooden w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Section I • The Early Nineteenth Century: Beethoven’s Orchestration
• Section II • The Late Nineteenth Century: French and German Orchestration I
• Section III • Interlude: Orchestral Possibilites on the Eve of the New Music
• Section IV • The Turn of the Twentieth Century: French and German Orchestration II
• Section V • The Early Twentieth Century: Klangfarbenmelodie and Texture
• Section VI • Later Twentieth-Century Innovations
• Bibliography
• Sources
• Index