Part 5 (2/2)

[Sidenote: _Symphony and dramatic orchestras._]

The modern symphony, especially the symphonic poem, shows the influence of this dramatic tendency, but not in the same degree. A comparison between model bands in each department will disclose what is called the normal orchestral organization. For the comparison (see page 82), I select the bands of the first Wagner Festival held in Bayreuth in 1876, the Philharmonic Society of New York, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

[Sidenote: _Instruments rarely used._]

Instruments like the corno di ba.s.setto, ba.s.s trumpet, tenor tuba, contra-ba.s.s tuba, and contra-ba.s.s trombone are so seldom called for in the music played by concert orchestras that they have no place in their regular lists. They are employed when needed, however, and the horns and other instruments are multiplied when desirable effects are to be obtained by such means.

[Sidenote: _Orchestras compared._]

New York Instruments Bayreuth. Philharmonic. Boston. Chicago.

First violins 16 18 16 16 Second violins 16 18 14 16 Violas 12 14 10 10 Violoncellos 12 14 8 10 Double-ba.s.ses 8 14 8 9 Flutes 3 3 3 3 Oboes 3 3 2 3 English horn 1 1 1 1 Clarinets 3 3 3 3 Ba.s.set-horn 1 0 0 0 Ba.s.soons 3 3 3 3 Trumpets or cornets 3 3 4 4 Horns 8 4 4 4 Trombones 3 3 3 3 Ba.s.s trumpet 1 0 0 1 Tenor tubas 2 0 2 4 Ba.s.s tubas 2 1 2 1 Contra-ba.s.s tuba 1 0 1 0 Contra-ba.s.s trombone 1 0 0 1 Tympani (pairs) 2 2 2 2 Ba.s.s drum 1 1 1 1 Cymbals (pairs) 1 1 1 1 Harps 6 1 1 2

[Sidenote: _The string quartet._]

[Sidenote: _Old laws against instrumentalists._]

[Sidenote: _Early instrumentation._]

[Sidenote: _Handel's orchestra._]

The string quartet, it will be seen, makes up nearly three-fourths of a well-balanced orchestra. It is the only choir which has numerous representation of its const.i.tuent units. This was not always so, but is the fruit of development in the art of instrumentation which is the newest department in music. Vocal music had reached its highest point before instrumental music made a beginning as an art. The former was the pampered child of the Church, the latter was long an outlaw. As late as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries instrumentalists were vagabonds in law, like strolling players. They had none of the rights of citizens.h.i.+p; the religious sacraments were denied them; their children were not permitted to inherit property or learn an honourable trade; and after death the property for which they had toiled escheated to the crown. After the instruments had achieved the privilege of artistic utterance, they were for a long time mere slavish imitators of the human voice. Bach treated them with an insight into their possibilities which was far in advance of his time, for which reason he is the most modern composer of the first half of the eighteenth century; but even in Handel's case the rule was to treat them chiefly as supports for the voices. He multiplied them just as he did the voices in his choruses, consorting a choir of oboes and ba.s.soons, and another of trumpets of almost equal numbers with his violins.

[Sidenote: _The modern band._]

The so-called purists in England talk a great deal about restoring Handel's orchestra in performances of his oratorios, utterly unmindful of the fact that to our ears, accustomed to the myriad-hued orchestra of to-day, the effect would seem opaque, heavy, unbalanced, and without charm were a band of oboes to play in unison with the violins, another of ba.s.soons to double the 'cellos, and half a dozen trumpets to come flaring and cras.h.i.+ng into the musical ma.s.s at intervals. Gluck in the opera, and Haydn and Mozart in the symphony, first disclosed the charm of the modern orchestra with the wind instruments apportioned to the strings so as to obtain the mult.i.tude of tonal tints which we admire to-day. On the lines which they marked out the progress has been exceedingly rapid and far-reaching.

[Sidenote: _Capacity of the orchestra._]

[Sidenote: _The extremes of range._]

In the hands of the latter-day Romantic composers, and with the help of the instrument-makers, who have marvellously increased the capacity of the wind instruments, and remedied the deficiencies which embarra.s.sed the Cla.s.sical writers, the orchestra has developed into an instrument such as never entered the mind of the wildest dreamer of the last century. Its range of expression is almost infinite. It can strike like a thunder-bolt, or murmur like a zephyr. Its voices are mult.i.tudinous. Its register is coextensive in theory with that of the modern pianoforte, reaching from the s.p.a.ce immediately below the sixth added line under the ba.s.s staff to the ninth added line above the treble staff. These two extremes, which belong respectively to the ba.s.s tuba and piccolo flute, are not at the command of every player, but they are within the capacity of the instruments, and mark the orchestra's boundaries in respect of pitch. The gravest note is almost as deep as any in which the ordinary human ear can detect pitch, and the acutest reaches the same extremity in the opposite direction.

[Sidenote: _The viols._]

[Sidenote: _The violin._]

With all the changes that have come over the orchestra in the course of the last two hundred years, the string quartet has remained its chief factor. Its voice cannot grow monotonous or cloying, for, besides its innate qualities, it commands a more varied manner of expression than all the other instruments combined. The viol, which term I shall use generically to indicate all the instruments of the quartet, is the only instrument in the band, except the harp, that can play harmony as well as melody. Its range is the most extensive; it is more responsive to changes in manipulation; it is endowed more richly than any other instrument with varieties of timbre; it has an incomparable facility of execution, and answers more quickly and more eloquently than any of its companions to the feelings of the player. A great advantage which the viol possesses over wind instruments is that, not being dependent on the breath of the player, there is practically no limit to its ability to sustain tones. It is because of this long list of good qualities that it is relied on to provide the staff of life to instrumental music. The strings as commonly used show four members of the viol family, distinguished among themselves by their size, and the quality in the changes of tone which grows out of the differences in size. The violins (Appendix, Plate I.) are the smallest members of the family. Historically they are the culmination of a development toward diminutiveness, for in their early days viols were larger than they are now. When the violin of to-day entered the orchestra (in the score of Monteverde's opera ”Orfeo”) it was specifically described as a ”little French violin.” Its voice, Berlioz says, is the ”true female voice of the orchestra.” Generally the violin part of an orchestral score is two-voiced, but the two groups may be split into a great number. In one pa.s.sage in ”Tristan und Isolde” Wagner divides his first and second violins into sixteen groups. Such divisions, especially in the higher regions, are productive of entrancing effects.

[Sidenote: _Violin effects._]

[Sidenote: _Pizzicato._]

[Sidenote: _”Col legno dall'arco.”_]

[Sidenote: _Harmonics._]

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