Instrumentation and Orchestration Lecture 2

Instrumentation and Orchestration: Lecture 2

One must take into account that when one is working with an orchestra you are also working with a concert hall to house it. Other things to take into account are tings like ‘how far are the players away from each other?’ Back in the really old days, in terms of composition, orchestration would come at the post-production phase and not be considered as important compared to the other factors of composition such as harmony. Berlioz, as we have already discussed, was one of the first to really think about tone colour and orchestration as a means of composition. Berlioz wanted to blend the orchestra into one instrument giving it a whole new range of possibilities. Who says that the violins have to have to tune the whole time eh? Mozart? Thus as we move on through the 19th Century, the music sounds persistently different. Today’s film music goes with the forms made in the 19th Century mostly, it’s annoying in that film music should broaden its horizons a bit more to be like the stuff that was composed in the 20th Century, or even better, the 21st Century. The best composers of the 20th Century, when considering orchestration are Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Vaughn Williams.

Mahler’s 9th Symphony: For the first half minute the music pieces itself together from fragments just like the orchestration. It doesn’t blend together, but instead it comes in at different times like the Italians would have done back in the Classic Era. The instruments are all following different pathways rather than just blending into one. Because Mahler has taken a different path to get this point, he’s also deemed it possible to have solo instruments play instead of having the entire orchestra play. This creates a chamber music feel, but then as the rest of the orchestra comes in, the musical feel goes back to that of an full orchestra. This was fist done by the magnificent Berlioz.

Stravinsky’s Les Noces: As Stravinsky composed the “Rite of Spring” with a very high bassoon solo to start off with; many people would not be able to distinguish it as a bassoon at the time. “Les Noces” by Stravinsky is a ballet about an ancient Russian wedding Ceremony. It sounds archaic, but the orchestration isn’t. There are sixteen percussionists and four pianos playing at the same time. Why? One; to give the piano a new sound, that is a much larger range than it could achieve with just one player. Second; the percussion lends it self as another means to change the piano’s sound. The percussion is the old part, and the piano is the new part. It all ties in very nicely with the composition as the old part comes from the subject matter, whilst the new comes from the composer and the new techniques involved. Stravinsky thus successfully changes the timbre of the piece to something new and unheard of before. This begs the question as to what the modern orchestra can sound like, why are there no Saxophones in the orchestra anyway? Apparently, the first mission when composing for orchestra is to make it sound traditional. Igor Stravinsky wanted a new and defined sound for his piece to distinguish it from al other pieces so the listener would be able to identify it within one second of hearing it. It’s no surprise that Stravinsky pulls out some cool combinations from the orchestra that you have never heard before.

Agon: is also a ballet, but about nothing.
Schoenberg: puts forward the idea that orchestration could be the only form of composition. His five pieces in op. 16 composed in 1909 are a great example. No. 3 is about the sun hitting the ocean water and creating sparkles and reflections that we all know.

Webern: at the same time as Schoenberg composed six pieces in his op. 6. They’re all very short because Webern wanted to see what would happen when you compressed a piece down into a very short time. In the second piece, the whole orchestra is used in conjunction with the first, which just uses a small selection of instruments. There are a lot of ideas being compressed into a small space of time. In No. 3 of this set of pieces Webern tries to colour every note differently, see previous lecture notes for full details. One can draw similarities with Mondrian’s work where the spaces inside the black frames are coloured in. Schoenberg was a painter for two years of his life and he actually put composition on hold to pursue his painting skills. Lots of composers tried to make paintings into pieces of music.

Edgard Varese: looked at cityscapes instead of paintings for his inspiration as he found them fascinating to look at having come from Europe to witness massive urban landscapes like the ones of Chicago or New York. This was in the 1920s remembering the age of machines. In Integrales Varese uses the wind in such a way that the melody goes between all of the different instruments, otherwise known as antiphonal exchange. He also gets rid of the strings entirely in this piece to give it more edge and to take the softness out of it.

THE END.