<h2>IX</h2>
<h3>DEVELOPMENT OF THE ORCHESTRA</h3></div>
<p>The appreciation and consequent enjoyment of
an orchestral concert will be greatly enhanced
if the listener is familiar with certain details
regarding the orchestra itself and some of the compositions
he is apt to hear. This I have borne in mind
in the chapter divisions of this portion of my book, and,
as a result, I have divided the subject into the general
development of the orchestra, the specific consideration
of the principal orchestral instruments, a cursory commentary
on certain phases of orchestral music and a
chapter on Richard Strauss who represents its most
advanced aspects.</p>
<p>The first music of which we moderns take account
was unaccompanied (<i>� capella</i>) singing for
church service. It was composed in the old ecclesiastical
modes, which are quite different from
our modern scales, and the name which comes most
prominently to mind in connection with this beginning
of our musical history is that of Palestrina. With the
influence of this old church choral music so dominant,
there is little wonder that the first efforts to write
music for instruments were awkward. It may be said
right here that this awkwardness, or rather this lack
of knowledge and appreciation of the individual capacity
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_168' name='page_168'></SPAN>168</span>
of various instruments, is shown throughout the
school of contrapuntal composition, even by Bach.
When Bach wrote for orchestral instruments he did
not consider their peculiar tone quality, or their capacity
for individual expression, but simply their pitch—which
instrument could take up this, that or the other
theme in his contrapuntal score, when he had carried
it as high or as low as he could on some other instrument.
This also is true of H�ndel, although in less
degree.</p>
<p>But just as we have seen that Domenico Scarlatti
worked along original lines for the pianoforte and created
the germ of the sonata form, while Bach was weaving
and plaiting the counterpoint of his suites, partitas
and “Well-Tempered Clavichord,” so in Italy, during a
large part of this contrapuntal period, a distinct kind of
orchestral music was springing up. Again, just as we
have seen that in Italy the pianoforte shook off the
trammels of counterpoint when it began to be used as
an accompaniment for dramatic recitative in opera, so
the instruments in the orchestra, when composers began
to use them for operatic accompaniments, were employed
more with reference to their individual tone
qualities and power of expression.</p>
<h4>Primitive Orchestral Efforts.</h4>
<p>Although, strictly speaking, not the first composer
to use orchestral instruments in opera, and to display
skill in utilizing their individual characteristics, the
most important of these early men was Claudio Monteverde
(1568-1643). In his “Orpheo,” which he produced
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_169' name='page_169'></SPAN>169</span>
in 1608, he utilized, besides two harpsichords
(and it may be of interest to note here that instruments
of the pianoforte class were long used in orchestras as
connecting links between all the other instruments),
two bass viols, two tenor viols, one double harp, two
little French violins, two large guitars, two wood organs,
two viola di gambas, one regal, four trombones,
two cornets, one octave flute, one clarion, and three
trumpets with mutes—a fairly formidable array of instruments
when the period is considered. Of especial
interest are the “two little French violins,” which probably
were the same as our modern violins, now the
prima donnas of the orchestra and far outnumbering
any other instrument employed.</p>
<p>It was Monteverde who in his “Tancredi e Clorinda”
made use for the first time of a tremolo for stringed
instruments, and it is said so to have astonished the
performers that they at first refused to play it. Before
Monteverde there were operatic composers like Jacopo
Peri, and after him Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti,
who did much for their day to develop the orchestra.
This is a very brief summary of the early development
of instrumental music, a story that easily could fill a
volume—which, probably, however, very few people
would take the trouble to read.</p>
<h4>Beethoven and the Modern Orchestra.</h4>
<p>The first really modern composer for the orchestra
was Joseph Haydn (1732-1809), who also may be considered
the father of the symphony. Born before Mozart,
he also survived that composer. His music is gay and
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_170' name='page_170'></SPAN>170</span>
naive; while Mozart, although he had decidedly greater
genius for the dramatic than Haydn, nevertheless is
only a trifle more emotional in his symphonies. The
three greatest of these which he composed during the
summer of 1788, the E flat major, G minor and
C major (known as the “Jupiter”), show a decided
advance in the knowledge of orchestration, and the
E flat major is notable because it is the first symphonic
work in which clarinets were used. Haydn’s
and Mozart’s symphonies—that is, the best of them—sound
agreeable even to-day in a concert hall of moderate
size. But because modern music with its sonorous
orchestra requires large auditoriums, like Carnegie
Hall in New York, these charming symphonic works
of the earlier classical period are swallowed up in
space and much of their naive and pretty effect is lost.</p>
<p>Beethoven may be said to have established the modern
orchestra. Very few instruments have been added
to it since his time, and if an orchestra to-day sounds
differently from what it did in his day, if the works
of modern composers sound richer and more effective
from a modern point of view than his orchestral compositions,
it is not because we have added a lot of new
instruments, but because our composers have acquired
greater skill in bringing out their peculiar tone qualities
and because the technique of orchestral players has
greatly improved.</p>
<p>It is for precisely the same reasons that Beethoven’s
symphonies show such a great advance upon those of
his predecessors. The point is not that Beethoven
added a few more instruments to the orchestra, but
that, so far as his own purposes were concerned, he
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_171' name='page_171'></SPAN>171</span>
handled all the instruments which he included in his
band with much greater skill than his predecessors had
shown. Many writers affect to despise technique.
But in point of fact the development of technique and
the development of art go hand in hand. An artist,
be he writer, painter or musician, cannot adequately
express his ideas unless he has the means of doing so
or the genius to create the means.</p>
<h4>How He Developed Orchestral Resources.</h4>
<p>In following Beethoven’s symphonies from the First
to the Ninth, we can see the modern orchestra developing
under his hands from that handed over to him by
Haydn and Mozart. In the First and Second Symphonies,
Beethoven employs the usual strings, two
flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two
horns, two trumpets and tympani. In the Third Symphony,
the “Eroica,” he adds a third horn part; in the
Fifth a piccolo, trombones and contrabassoon. Although
employed in the finale only, these instruments
here make their first bow in the symphonic orchestra.
In the Ninth Symphony Beethoven introduced two additional
horns, the first use of four horns in a symphony.
The scoring of these symphonies is given
somewhat more in detail in the chapter “How the Orchestra
Grew,” in Mr. W. J. Henderson’s “The Orchestra
and Orchestral Music,” a well conceived and logically
developed book, in which the full story of the
orchestra and its growth is clearly and interestingly
told.</p>
<p>Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_172' name='page_172'></SPAN>172</span>
than his predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral
instruments, he also compelled orchestral players
to acquire a better technique by giving them more
difficult music to execute. In point of greater difficulty
in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds
about the same relation to the symphonies of Mozart
and Haydn as the Beethoven pianoforte sonatas do to
the sonatas of those composers.</p>
<h4>Beethoven and Wagner.</h4>
<p>Just as Beethoven added only a few instruments to
the orchestra of his predecessors, but showed greater
skill in handling those instruments, so the modern
musician—a Wagner or a Richard Strauss—achieves
his striking instrumental effects by a still greater knowledge
of instrumental resources. The Beethoven orchestra
practically is the orchestra of to-day. Few,
very few, instruments have been added. Modern composers
steadily have asked for more and more instruments
in each group; but that is quite a different thing
from adding new instruments. They have required
more instruments of the same kind, but have asked for
very few instruments of new kinds. Let me illustrate
this by two modern examples.</p>
<p>Firm, compact and eloquent as is Beethoven’s orchestra
in the Fifth Symphony, it cannot for a moment
be compared in richness, sonority, tone color, searching
power of expression and unflagging interest, with
Wagner’s orchestra in “Die Meistersinger.” Yet Wagner
has added only one trumpet, a harp and a tuba
to the very orchestra which Beethoven employed when
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_173' name='page_173'></SPAN>173</span>
he scored for the Fifth Symphony; while for his
“Symphonie <SPAN name='TC_3'></SPAN><ins class="trchange" title="Was 'Path�tique'">Path�tique</ins>,” one of the finest of modern
orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a bass tuba
to the orchestra used by Beethoven. The simple fact
is that modern composers have studied every possible
phase of tone color and expression of which each instrument
is capable. Furthermore, by skillfully dividing
the orchestra into groups and using these groups
like separate orchestras, yet uniting them into one great
orchestra, they produce wonderfully rich contrapuntal
effects, and thus make the modern orchestra sound, not
seventy-five years, but five hundred years more advanced
than that of Beethoven, however great we
gladly acknowledge Beethoven to have been.</p>
<h4>Berlioz, an Orchestral Juggler.</h4>
<p>Following Beethoven, the next great development in
the handling of orchestral resources is due to Hector
Berlioz (1803-1869), and it is curious here how nearly
one musical epoch overlaps another. Scarlatti was
composing sonatas, and thus voicing the beginning of
the classical era, while Bach was bringing the contrapuntal
period to a close. It was only five years after
the completion of the Ninth Symphony that Berlioz’s
“Francs Juges” overture was played. A year later his
“Symphonie Fantastique, Episode de la Vie d’un Artiste,”
was brought out. Yet the Berlioz orchestra
sounds so utterly different from the Beethoven orchestra
that it almost might be a collection of different instruments.
Even more than Beethoven, Berlioz understood
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_174' name='page_174'></SPAN>174</span>
the individuality, the potential characteristics
of each instrument.</p>
<p>Berlioz composed on a colossal scale, so colossal that
his music has been called architectural. The “Dies Irae”
in his “Requiem” calls for four brass bands, in four different
corners of the hall, and for fourteen kettledrums
tuned to different notes, in addition to the regular orchestra,
chorus and soloists. This has been dubbed
“three-story music”—the orchestra on the ground floor,
the chorus on the <i>belle �tage</i>, while the four extra brass
bands are stationed <i>aux troisi�me</i>. Unfortunately for
Berlioz, his ambition, in so far as it related to the art
of orchestration and the skill he showed in accomplishing
what he wanted to with his body of instrumentalists,
was far in excess of his inspiration. His knowledge
of the orchestra was sufficient to have afforded
him every facility for the expression of great
thoughts if he had them to express. But his
power of thematic invention, his gift for melody, was
not equal to his genius for instrumentation. Nevertheless,
through this genius for instrumentation—for his
technique was so extraordinary that it amounted to
genius—and through his very striving after bizarre,
unusual and gigantic effects, he contributed largely toward
the development of the technical resources of instrumental
music.</p>
<h4>Wagner, Greatest of Orchestral Composers.</h4>
<p>Berlioz wrote a book on instrumentation, which has
lately been re-edited by Richard Strauss. In it Strauss,
modestly ignoring himself, says that Wagner’s scores
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_175' name='page_175'></SPAN>175</span>
mark the only advance in orchestration worth mentioning
since Berlioz. It is true, the technical possibilities
of the orchestra were greatly improved, so far
as the woodwind was concerned, by the introduction
of keyed instruments constructed on the system invented
by Theobald B�hm; while the French instrument
maker, Adolphe Sax, also made important improvements
by perfecting the bass clarinet and the bass
tuba. But whatever aid Wagner derived from these
improvements merely was incidental to the principle
which is illustrated by every one of his scores—that
technique merely is a means to an end. Wagner is the
greatest orchestral virtuoso who ever breathed. Never,
however, does he employ technique for technique’s
sake, but always only to enable his orchestra to convey
the exact meaning he has in his mind or express the
emotion he has in his heart, and he spares no pains to
hit upon the best method of conveying these ideas and
expressing these emotions. That is one reason why,
although no one with any knowledge of music could
mistake a passage by Wagner for any one else’s music,
each of his works has its own peculiar orchestral style.
For each of his works reproduces through the orchestra
the “atmosphere” of its subject. The scores of
“Tannh�user,” “Lohengrin,” “The Ring of the Nibelung,”
“Tristan,” “Meistersinger” and “Parsifal” never
could be mistaken for any one but Wagner’s music.
Yet how different they are from each other! He
makes each instrument speak its own language.
When, for example, the English horn speaks through
Wagner, it speaks English, not broken English,
and so it is with all the other instruments of the
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_176' name='page_176'></SPAN>176</span>
orchestra—he makes them speak without a foreign
accent.</p>
<p>If Wagner employs a large orchestra, it is not for
the sake of making a noise, but in order to gain variety
in expression. “He is wonderfully reserved in the
use of his forces,” says Richard Strauss. “He employs
them as a great general would his battalions, and does
not send in an army corps to pick off a skirmisher.”
Strauss regards “Lohengrin” as a model score for a
somewhat advanced student, before proceeding to the
polyphony of “Tristan” and “Meistersinger” or “the
fairy region of the ‘Nibelungs.’” “The handling of the
wind instruments,” writes Strauss, “reaches a hitherto
unknown esthetic height. The so-called third woodwinds,
English horn and bass clarinet, added for the
first time to the woodwinds, are already employed in
a variety of tone color; the voices of the second, third
and fourth horn, trumpets and trombones established
in an independent polyphony, the doubling of melodic
voices characteristic of Wagner, carried out with such
assurance and freedom and knowledge of their characteristic
timbres, and worked out with an understanding
of tonal beauty, that to this day evokes unstinted
admiration. At the close of the second act the organ
tones that Wagner lures out of the orchestra triumph
over the queen of instruments itself.”</p>
<h4>How Wagner Produces His Effects.</h4>
<p>The effects produced by Wagner are not due to a
large orchestra, but to his manner of using the instruments
in it. Among some of his special effects are
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_177' name='page_177'></SPAN>177</span>
the employment of full harmony with what formerly
would have been merely single passing notes, and above
all, the exploitation of every resource of counterpoint
in combination with the well developed system of harmony
inherited from Beethoven, but largely added to
by himself. In fact, Wagner’s greatness is due to the
combination of several great gifts—his melodic inventiveness,
his rich harmony and his wonderful technical
skill in weaving together his themes in a still richer
counterpoint. This counterpoint is not, however, dry
and formal, because his themes—his leading motives—are
themselves full of emotional significance and not
conceived, like those of the old contrapuntists, merely:
for formal treatment.</p>
<p>Richard Strauss is such a master of orchestration
that I am inclined to quote his summary of the development
of the art of orchestration, from his edition of
the Berlioz book, which at this writing has not yet
been translated. I should like to recall to the reader’s
mind, however, the fact that Strauss’ father was a
noted French-horn player; that Strauss himself has a
great love for the instrument; and that when, in summing
up the causes of Wagner’s primacy among orchestral
writers, he finds one of them in the greater
technical facility of the valve horn, it is well to take
this with a grain of salt and attribute it somewhat
to his own affection for the instrument. The symphonies
of Haydn and Mozart, according to Strauss,
are enlarged string quartets with obbligato woodwind,
brass and tympani, and the occasional use of
other instruments of noise to strengthen the tuttis.</p>
<p>“Even with Beethoven, the symphony is still simply
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_178' name='page_178'></SPAN>178</span>
enlarged chamber music, the orchestra being treated in
a pianistic spirit which unfortunately shows itself even
in the orchestral work of Schumann and Brahms.
Wagner owes his polyphonic string quintet not to the
Beethoven orchestra, but to the last quartets of Beethoven,
in which each instrument is the peer of the
others.</p>
<p>“Meanwhile, another kind of orchestral work was
developing, for, from the time of Gluck on, the opera
orchestra was gaining in coloring and in individual
characteristics. Berlioz was not dramatic enough for
opera nor symphonic enough for the concert stage, yet
his efforts to write programmatic symphonies resulted
in his discovering new effects, new possibilities in tone
tints and in orchestral technics. Berlioz misses the
polyphony that enriches Wagner’s orchestra, and
makes instruments like the second violins, violas, etc.,
second horns, etc., weave their threads or strands of
melody into the woof. Wagner’s primacy is due to his
employment of the richest style of polyphony and counterpoint,
the increased possibility of this through the
invention of the valve horn, and his demand of solo
virtuosity upon his orchestral players. His scores mark
the only advance worth mentioning since Berlioz.”</p>
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<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_179' name='page_179'></SPAN>179</span>
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