Orcus

“ In fact, we should declare to be criminals, and hold up to the contempt of the public, those who make an accordeon of the organ; those who arpeggiate, who do not play legato, whose rhythm is but passable.
With the organ, as in the orchestra, precision must rule; the perfect ensemble of feet and hands is absolutely necessary, whether in attacking or leaving the keyboard. All notes placed in the same perpendicular by the composer must be made to speak and to cease speaking at the same time, obedient to the bâton of a single conductor. ”

“ Much of it applies with almost greater force to the organ than to the piano. Extemporising on the organ will frequently become an aimless, barless, rhythmless wandering among the keys to which no change of stops can give any interest. So much oratorio music is now sung in churches and in other places, where on account of the expense or from other reasons, an orchestra is unattainable, that the organ is often called upon, to supply the place of a full band. ”

“ Groups in the Orchestra.—The orchestra is composed of groups of instruments allied by similarity of construction. The usual classification is into three main groups, strings, (bowed instruments) , wind and percussion instruments. In the former are included the violins, viola, violoncello and double or contra-bass; wind instruments subordinate into wood wind and brass, the former include instruments of the flute, oboe, bassoon and clarinet families, the latter horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba or other bass instruments; the percussion includes kettle drums, other drums, triangles, cymbals, etc. ”

“ Each of the orchestral instruments has its own individual association—the oboe reminds you of a shepherd’s pipe, the flute of a bird’s song, the French horn of hunting, and so forth; but each one of the instruments in the orchestra as you listen to it is forming lines, and adding colors, as it were, in a great design. And this design, always complete at any one point, goes on unceasingly forming itself ever and ever anew. It is always complete and always incomplete, always moving onward, always delicately poised for inevitable flight. As you listen you have lived a thousand lives ”

“ The modern orchestra, if we reckon the military band which is often introduced on the stage, and the organ which is sometimes heard at the back of the stage, includes every available instrument that is known except the piano; which is an orchestra on a reduced scale, but ineffective and useless as an orchestral unit in the midst of so many instruments of superior sonority. ”

“ If we look at the row of double-basses in the Orchestra, we will notice that some of the men are playing on instruments with three strings and others on instruments with four strings; but the work they have to do is practically the same. It is fascinating to watch the players whose hands move so rapidly up and down the long neck of the instrument and whose fingers fall so intelligently and firmly upon the right places, while the short, thick, black-haired bow looks sometimes as if it would saw the double-bass in two. ”

“ The membrane of the ear receives the torrent of motion, and transmits it with all its harmonies. In an orchestra, where scores of instruments are playing through the whole compass of the scale, the air is cut into waves by every complexity of vibration—grave tones mingle with shrill, soft with harsh, fundamentals are merged in overtones, and the storm of impulses is shot with the speed of rifle-bullets against the tympanum; and yet there is no confusion. In all their infinite diversity of qualities the waves are legible to the little membrane. ”

“ It needed only to add to this flute a keyboard and bellows to make one of those pretty instruments the first painters used to put in the hands of angels. As it developed and gradually became the most grandiose of the instruments, the organ, with its depth of tone modified and increased tenfold by the resonance of the great cathedrals, took on its religious character.
The organ is more than a single instrument. It is an orchestra, a collection of the pipes of Pan of every size, from those as small as a child’s playthings to those as gigantic as the columns of a temple. ”

“ As one who loves wind-instruments, I like to think that the flutes, oboes, and clarinets are the flowers of my vernal orchestra, decorating the great mass of stringed instruments with streaks and flames of colour.
In real music, we cannot say why certain sounds make an appropriate opening for a symphony ”

“ Here is a list of the instruments of a complete orchestra: First violins 15, second violins 12, violas 10, violoncellos 10, double basses 8, flutes 2, piccolo 1, oboes, cor Anglais, clarionet, corno di bassetto, bassoon, double bassoon, trumpets, horns, trombones, timpani, cornet à piston, bass trumpet, tenor tuba, ophicleide, contra bass tuba, harp, bass drum, cymbals. The number and kind of instruments can of course be varied to a certain extent without losing the effect.
Chamber music differs from ordinary orchestras because none of the instruments are doubled ”

“ Neither musical feeling nor the ear itself can stand, for long, the full resources of the orchestra combined together. The favourite group of instruments is the strings, then follow in order the wood-wind, brass, kettle-drums, harps, pizzicato effects, and lastly the percussion, also, in point of order, triangle, cymbals, big drum, side drum, tambourine, gong. Further removed stand the celesta, glockenspiel and xylophone, which instruments, though melodic, are too characteristic in timbre to be employed over frequently. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Many a musician may dislike the symphony, but none can help [Pg 358] respecting it. The orchestra, though not large for our day, was revolutionary in its time. It included, in one movement or another (besides the usual strings) a small flute and two large ones; oboes; two clarinets, a small clarinet, and an English horn; four horns, two trumpets, two cornets à pistons, and three trombones; four bassoons, two ophicleides, four pairs of kettle-drums, cymbals, bells, and bass drum.
A challenge to the timid spirits of the time; and a thing of revolutionary significance to modern music. ”

“ The organ, as a keyed instrument, has all the main points of technique [Pg 38] in common with the piano. All the varied forms of scales, arpeggios, &c., together with the necessary independence of finger requisite to play in the legato style, should first be learned upon the piano, where, by the way, it can be more speedily acquired. Pupils who, having accomplished this, proceed to the study of the organ, can at once begin with the peculiarities and characteristic difficulties of the instrument, and as far as the pedal is concerned, will make far more rapid progress if fair manual players. ”

“ Lully; Wagner; our Symphony Orchestras.
The Orchestra, a great instrument, composed, as we have seen, of so many different instruments, voices, and human personalities, awaits the Conductor before it becomes of value.
He enters, takes his stand before his men, raises his tiny white bâton, and the large body is vitalized into sound. All these many vibrations and voices reach our ears; and we, following the unfolding patterns and musical phrases, put them all together in the shape and form that the composer heard in his dreams, reduced to writing and made permanent for posterity. ”

“ We call the Orchestra an instrument, or even a machine; but let us think for a moment of these intelligent personalities behind their instruments, or merged into their instruments, and we shall realize what a sensitive organization a Symphony Orchestra is. ”

“ While the stringed and wind instruments of the orchestra, the pianoforte, and the voice, hold sway only by their instantaneity of accent, by the unexpectedness of their attack, the organ, limited to the confines of its own inherent majesty, speaks with the voice of philosophy. ”

“ It is worthy of note that this new departure of employing a second couplet of horns in the symphonic scheme concludes the evolution of the classical orchestra. For the incorporation into the concert orchestra of the oboe da caccia, resuscitated in the form of the English horn, of the modern bass-clarinet, of the opheicleide and the usurper of its functions, the bass-tuba, was an outgrowth of the Romantic Movement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Never before has an orchestra of sixty-two strings, two harps, a piccolo, three flutes, two oboes, an oboe d'amore, a cor anglais, five clarinets, five bassoons, four saxophones, eight horns, four trumpets, three trombones, a bass tuba, four kettledrums, a triangle, a tambourine, a glockenspiel, cymbals, and a big drum, been required to describe a day in the life of a baby; never before have the energies of over a hundred able-bodied men been bent to such a task. He tunes his strings below the normal limit just as he likes ”

“ The symphony orchestra as it is constituted today is the most ambitious and the most perfect musical “instrument” in the world. It combines all the existing types of instruments and so can readily achieve all the possible varieties and shades of tone colors. The analogy between the organist and the symphony orchestra conductor is fairly close, and to think of a symphony orchestra, consisting of a hundred or so of the most skillful players obtainable, as a single instrument, is quite permissible. ”

“ 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 [Pg 116] 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.” ”

“ It is this synthesis which the "decadent" poets or musicians have, in late years, striven to revive.
The superb rhythm of the pedal when the organ responds to the choir [5] should emphasize the text, sustain it in outbursts of exaltation, and not vulgarize it by a continual and unintelligent abuse.
-xviii-
The organ is a wind instrument; it requires opportunity to take breath. Like the literary sentence, the musical phrase has its commas, its periods, its paragraphs. As a speaker changes his intonation, so must the organ vary its "designs." ”

“ The modern orchestra, then, is composed of the following instruments: Flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trumpets, trombones, drums, and other instruments of percussion, violins, violas, violoncellos, and double-basses. These instruments naturally divide themselves into families. Flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons are instruments of wood, and are caused to sound by the blowing of the breath of the players. ”

“ It would, however, be an interesting subject to trace this development down to Chopin, Liszt, and the modern Titans of the piano, showing how gradually the mutual treatment of piano and organ disappeared and what was substituted in their place. It could, however, only be satisfactorily done by musical examples.
Meanwhile the orchestra blossomed into a new significance. To us moderns who read its history, or look back into the scores which antedate this time, it does not seem so much a period to be described, as that of progress, as that of a veritable new birth itself, a new creation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”