W. J. Henderson

“ The average theatre orchestra is an eloquent demonstration of the bad [Pg 127] effects of poor balance among the instruments. The desperate struggles of two first violins, one second, one viola, one ’cello, and one double-bass to produce sufficient sound to make themselves heard in forte passages against the sonorous pealing of a cornet, a trombone, and a pair of tympani, are as vain as they are ridiculous. Such efforts are repeated on a larger scale when modern symphonic music is performed by an orchestra whose strings are led by six first violins. ”

“ Given a proper array of instruments, the preservation of balance of tone is due chiefly to the conductor, though it is also necessary that the players should not be troubled with individual ambition. The occasional solo affords the individual player an opportunity to display his powers, but at all other times he should be content to sacrifice his glory for the general result. A good orchestra is in this respect like a perfect boat-crew; every man in it should be part of a machine to produce a single effect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If the players of an orchestra are not at all times absolutely at one in their work, there can be neither precision nor unanimity. Precision is keeping absolutely together in beginning and finishing, whether it be a detached chord or tone, or a phrase. Unanimity is keeping together, in time and force and all other requirements, between the beginning and the end. The act of commencing a tone is called the attack. ”

“ A conductor of cold temperament will not give highly colored readings, nor will he excite enthusiasm in his orchestra. A conductor of poetic feeling will conduct poetically and he will make his orchestra play so. But neither of them accomplishes his result suddenly and spontaneously at the performance. All that a conductor does at a performance is to remind his players of what he told them at rehearsal. It could not be otherwise, for the beat of the baton and the utterance of the sound by the instruments is almost simultaneous. ”

“ From Bach to Haydn A book on the orchestra might be regarded as complete without this chapter, yet it seems to the author that a few suggestions as to the nature and aims of the different kinds of orchestral music heard at concerts may not be unwelcome to the reader. It is always desirable to know what to listen for in a musical composition, because many disappointments are thus avoided. A person who hopes to hear in a Bach fugue the gorgeous masses of tone which are characteristic of a contemporaneous orchestral piece, will certainly declare Bach to be a dry and uninteresting composer. ”

“ The pleasure to be derived from the performance of an orchestral composition must naturally be largely increased when the listener is alert to catch all the varieties of excellence which may be combined in it. Orchestration, as I have already said, does not mean the playing of an orchestra, though the word is frequently misused in that sense. It means writing for an orchestra, and it has certain requirements not always to be found even in the works of the great masters. ”

“ The tendency in our day, indeed, has been to do a little too much interpreting, and as a result the conductor has too frequently distracted attention from the music to himself. The public, prone to run after a virtuoso of any kind, has readily bowed the knee at the shrine of the baton-wielder, and we have beheld the curious spectacle of people going not to hear Beethoven or Wagner, but Nikisch or Seidl. ”

“ The placing of the effects is, of course, indicated in the score, or, if not, must be the result of the judgment and taste of the conductor; but the manner of producing them is the work of the performers. It requires frequent rehearsal to get these effects made with precision, unanimity, and smoothness of tone, yet they should be so made. An orchestra should sing like a great singer, and it should be able to produce all the delicate shades of song as a human voice can.
But an orchestra has many voices, and the composer often takes advantage of this fact. ”

“ In passages which are not written for the whole orchestra there should be unanimity in accent among those for which they are written. In fact, an orchestra should have absolutely military accuracy in all its work, and this presupposes long and arduous drill and extended association. Permanency is a necessity to fine orchestral work. Men who have played together a long time, even under an inferior conductor, will play with much more precision and unanimity than men newly brought together under the beat of a famous director. ”

“ The viola speaks often enough, but no one recognizes her voice. She is unknown to the average concert-goer. Kept in the background by the position of the players, who sit behind the violins, and by the unskilful employment of the earlier composers, this beautiful and expressive member of the viol family is almost a stranger to lovers of music. The viola is nothing more or less than a larger violin with a deeper compass. ”

“ It is what is called free counterpoint, by which is meant the working together of several voices which do not sing different parts of the same melody at the same time, but only at points suitable to the composer’s purpose, while at other points new melodic ideas may be introduced. But in the early polyphonic music the listener will hear chiefly the interweaving of voice-parts of the same melody, and he will miss all the beauty and intellectual finish of these works if he seeks simply for the sensuous sweetness of instrumental tints. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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, [Pg 63] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is beyond dispute that if the tempo is incorrect, the performance must inevitably be weak or utterly bad; but it does not follow that when the tempo is right, all will be satisfactory. Nevertheless, it is true that the first and most important duty of the conductor is to decide the tempo, and that he can only do by a complete comprehension of the musical character of the composition. In music written since Beethoven’s day the conductor has something to guide him in the matter of tempo, as I shall presently show ”

“ One who loves orchestral music and wishes to understand how its effects are produced should study scores. Study your score first at home and try to imagine how it ought to sound. Then follow the performance with it and note what combinations of instruments produce particular effects. After a time you will find that your understanding of the orchestra has greatly increased, and you will get new enjoyment from the performance of symphonies and overtures. ”

“ The first oboe of the same orchestra has a peculiar tone, which robs his instrument of its individuality and makes it resemble a clarinet. A well-known solo horn player produces from his instrument a tone which sounds more like that of a valve trombone or a euphonium than that of a French horn. Such individual faults injure the general effect of an orchestra’s playing, though they are not strictly to be classed under the head of qualities of orchestral performance. ”

“ Within itself the orchestra embraces a wide variety of tone-qualities and many grades of power and brilliancy, and these are due to the presence of several different families of instruments, each having general qualities, with special traits in the individuals. It is by causing these different families to work together or separately that the composer achieves the expression of his thought, and it is by governing wisely the operations of the individual members and the families that the conductor conveys the composer’s design to the hearer. ”

“ The foundation of an orchestra is its body of strings. Two principal reasons may here be given for this: The strings are capable, when playing alone, of a greater variety of expression than either the wood or the brass, and they never grow tired. Blowers of wind-instruments require frequent periods of rest, but the strings are equal to the demands of an operatic act an hour and a half in length. Because the strings are the foundation of the orchestra we must study them first. ”

“ 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 [Pg 70] to be determined by his middle voices, and it is in the treatment of these that we see growth in skill. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Wind-Instruments of Brass THE HORN The brass choir is composed of horns, trumpets, and trombones, with the addition in most modern scores of a contra-bass tuba. Wagner has used also bass trumpets and tenor tubas to enrich the color of this part of his orchestra. The horn, or French horn, as it is often called, is the old hunting horn adapted to orchestral purposes. It is an extremely valuable instrument, because it has a most noble and expressive tone, which makes it very interesting as a solo voice, and equally because it blends admirably with either strings or wood, as well as with brass. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When there are only six first violins it is not wise to attempt works which call for divisions of those six into four parts. It is always absurd to hear an orchestra with three ’cellos trying to “fake” the opening measures of Rossini’s “William Tell” overture, and in the tutti the trombone rages like a lion. It is generally conceded in this country that a concert orchestra requires about 60 stringed [Pg 128] instruments to give a proper balance to the wood and brass. I have already spoken of the constitution of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which has 58 strings on a basis of 16 first violins. ”

“ In singing, phrasing means the division of the melody into groups of notes, so that breath can be taken. Now, phrasing is obviously quite as vital to wind-instrument players as to singers, because the former, too, must have intervals to take breath. Obviously, if the several players stop to take breath, they should cease to sound their instruments at the same instant, and begin again with equal precision. ”

“ The trombone is one of the noblest of all orchestral instruments. When it sounds ignoble, it is either because its part is not well written or because it is badly played. In respect of register there are three principal kinds of trombones—alto, tenor, and bass. The alto has a compass extending from A at the bottom of the bass clef to the E flat in the top space of the treble clef. The tenor ranges from E below the bass clef to the B flat in the middle of the treble clef, and this is the instrument most frequently employed. ”

“ A similar grouping of notes is made in the performance of bowed instruments by the movements of the bow. All violin-players know that there is a difference in the results produced by the up-stroke and those by the down-stroke. Phrasing in the orchestra, then, is the technical treatment of the natural groups of tones which form the component parts of a melody in such a way that they shall come out clearly and symmetrically and in a vocal style. Here again we come upon the technical part of a conductor’s work. It is he who regulates the phrasing. ”

“ But, after all, the theatre is hardly the place to look for art in music. The concert-hall and the opera-house are its homes, but owing to [Pg 130] the conditions which surround the performance of opera in most places, only the concert orchestra can be expected to show the highest possibilities of performance. In such an orchestra we may expect to find a proper distribution of instruments, and having that, we should demand a perfect solidity and balance of tone. I can hardly put too much emphasis on the necessity of good tone. ”

“ The compass of the clarinet is from the E below the treble clef three octaves and a half upward. The notes of the uppermost octave are shrill and are seldom used. They are employed occasionally when a screaming effect is desired. Clarinets are used in pairs in the orchestra, sometimes to fill out harmonies, and frequently for solo effects. There is hardly anything which cannot be done with a clarinet, for the instrument is capable of great agility and brilliancy, and at the same time is the most expressive of all the wind-instruments. ”