Orchestration

I

Introduction

Orchestration, the art of combining musical instruments in orchestral compositions. Orchestration is a complex instance of instrumentation, the assigning of instruments in music for an ensemble of any size.

II

Techniques

Besides a knowledge of the ranges of the instruments to be used, orchestrating a work requires an understanding of each instrument's idiosyncrasies. A certain passage may be playable on a clarinet only with an awkward fingering, for example, or it may require the harpist to carry out an ungainly ineffective series of changes of pedals, which control the available notes. Violins and trumpets must be given a few measures' rest if the players are to add or remove mutes. Although such information can be obtained from books, it is most thoroughly learned by working closely with players. Conducting provides invaluable experience with effective instrumental combinations, which can be augmented by careful analysis of musical scores. Orchestrating a work that was composed for another medium requires an aesthetic sense attuned to preserving the style of the original and to clarifying its structure.

III

History

Before the 17th century performers usually worked out the instrumentation of a piece in rehearsal. About 1600, composers began assigning specific instruments to various parts. The development and standardization of the orchestra (1600?-1750?) made possible the early 18th-century conventions of orchestration. The strings usually were scored in three parts—two treble parts played by violins and a bass part played by cellos and double basses. The viola generally doubled (followed) one of the other parts. A pair of oboes or flutes, or both, plus a bassoon, reinforced and enriched the sound of the string parts. Harmonic cohesiveness was provided by the basso continuo (the bass line plus harmonies provided by a harpsichord or organ). Trumpets and timpani appeared occasionally, and, after the mid-18th century, the clarinet and horn were added. Trombones became common a few decades later. Instruments were often used for their symbolic or nonmusical associations (the oboe, pastoral; trumpets and timpani, royal; the trombone, solemn or sacred; the French horn, the hunt; the triangle, cymbals, and bass drum, Turkish or exotic).

By the late 18th century the basso continuo was no longer used, and the harmonies were largely filled in by the French horns. The trend was toward a texture in which short phrases were fragmented and developed by the different instrument sections; the winds thus provided many hues and flashes of color. Ludwig van Beethoven gave prominent, independent parts to the viola and experimented with the use of piccolos and trombones, and he was among the first to exploit the soloistic capabilities of the French horn.

---

---

In the romantic era (1820?-1900?) composers tended more than in the past to conceive their works directly in terms of orchestral colors, and they explored the capability of two or more instruments being played at the same pitch to yield a tone quality unlike that of any single instrument. Composers such as Hector Berlioz, a Frenchman, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, a Russian, and Richard Wagner, a German, used technically improved wind instruments in increasingly varied ways, both in massive and delicate sonorities. Much orchestral music of the late 19th century, such as that of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, required orchestras of great size and complex instrumentation.

In the 20th century, French composers such as Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel emphasized the sensuous and pictorial color effects available to the modern orchestra. The Russian-born composer Igor Stravinsky often broke with classical tradition, giving the melody to the brass section and transferring the percussive function to the strings. Percussion instruments were increasingly drawn on to provide new colors, and new techniques were applied to many instruments (for example, using the wood body of a violin for percussion). Electronic musical instruments and sound synthesizers made a new palette of sounds available to composers.

See also Orchestra. For jazz orchestras or big bands, see Jazz.

	More from Encarta
	•  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain