Evolution of the Orchestra
Early groupings of instruments without definite
plan--Significance of the work of Monteverde--Scarlatti's use
of the string quartet--Handel and the foundation of the modern
style--The symphonic orchestra of Beethoven--Berlioz, Wagner,
and special instrumental coloring--Plan of the contemporaneous
orchestra.
The modern orchestra is about two hundred years old. That is to say, the
first skeleton of our present arrangement of instruments is found near
the close of the seventeenth century. Earlier than that the distribution
of instruments and the manner of writing for them contained none of the
essential elements of the present style. Three centuries ago lutes and
viols were employed in combination with drums and trumpets in a very
confused manner, and even for this assembly of instruments there were no
special compositions. An orchestra as such can hardly be said to have
made its appearance until the time when the development of music as a
part of dramatic entertainments compelled the preparation of some sort
of substantial accompaniment to the choruses and dances. In the "Ballet
Comique de la Royne" (1581) of Beaujoyeux there was an array of oboes,
flutes, cornets, trombones, violas di gamba (precursor of the
violoncello), lutes, harps, flageolet, and ten violins. This looks like
a tolerable orchestra, but the manner of writing for it prevented it
from being one. The performers were separated into ten bands, each
designed to accompany some particular character or set of characters.
Neptune and his followers, for example, used harps and flutes. The ten
violins were employed only in one scene. In those days, as we have
already seen, compositions were written "da cantare e sonare," and a
canzone for strings was simply a piece of vocal polyphony played instead
of sung.
The advent of Italian opera and oratorio ushered in the first organized
use of the orchestra. Cavaliere's "Anima e Corpo," an oratorio, had an
orchestra consisting of a viola di gamba, a harpsichord, a bass lute,
and two flutes. This orchestra, like that of the Bayreuth theatre, was
concealed. But it was not used like a modern orchestra. For instance,
the composer recommended that a violin be employed to accompany the
soprano voice throughout the work. This oratorio was produced in
February, 1600, and in December of the same year at the first
performance of Peri's opera, "Eurydice," the orchestra consisted of a
harpsichord, a viola di gamba, a large guitar, a theorbo (large lute),
and three flutes. These last instruments were used only to imitate the
sounds of a Pandæan pipe, played by a shepherd in the opera.
A decided advance in the development of the orchestra was made by
Claudio Monteverde, whose "Orfeo" (1608) had an accompaniment of two
harpsichords, two bass viols, ten tenor viols, two "little French
violins," one harp, two large guitars, two organs (small ones), two
violas di gamba, four trombones, one regal (a little reed organ), two
cornets, one piccolo, one clarion (an instrument of the trumpet family),
and three trumpets. But even in this opera Monteverde showed that he had
not discovered the true relations of the instruments. The "little French
violins" seem to be the first modern violins used in the orchestra, yet
they may have been somewhat crude instruments, for the first maker of
real violins of whom we know anything was Gasparo di Salo (1542-1610).
He was a much better maker of violas than of violins, and it was
Giovanni Paolo Maggini (1581-1631) who left us the violin as we have it
to-day. Monteverde may have regarded violins from Salo's Lombardy home,
Brescia, as French, because the French and Italians were continually at
war there. The violin, having once entered the orchestra, however,
speedily began to move toward its proper position as the principal
voice, and as soon as composers recognized its sphere, they began to
employ the other instruments with due regard for their relative
capacities. Monteverde was the first composer who took advantage of the
contrasting qualities of tone in the orchestra. His position in regard
to the treatment of orchestral music shows a remarkable advance, and had
a direct and wide influence upon the development of the orchestra.
Monteverde's operas contain many bits of independent orchestral music,
but it was in attempting to illustrate the incidents of his dramas by
means of the orchestral part that he divorced the accompaniment from the
voice parts and discovered the relative values of some of his
instruments. In one of his operas he uses a string quartet, composed of
three violas and a bass, and while the voices sing the text to a
recitative, these instruments depict the rushing together of horses in
combat, the struggle of the opponents, and other actions not described
by the text, but performed by the actors. In writing this passage
Monteverde invented two well-known effects: the tremolo (a rapid
tremulous repetition of a single note), and the pizzicato (plucking the
strings with the fingers). The feeling for instrumental description
displayed in this score led Monteverde to emphasize the essential
utility of the strings, and at the same time it led him to use the other
instruments to produce contrasts.
In the opera "Giasone" (1649) of Cavalli we find a song accompanied by
two violins and a bass in a style which lasted till Handel's day.
Alessandro Stradella in 1676 used a double orchestra in which violins
were the principal instruments. About the same time we find Alessandro
Scarlatti writing for first and second violins, violas, and basses,
distributing the parts in quartet form, in the same way as composers do
to-day. He used his first violin as the soprano of his string quartet,
his second violin as the alto, his viola as the tenor, and his bass as
the fundamental bass. Wind instruments continued to be used to add color
and contrast to the foundation of strings and in tutti passages
(passages enlisting all the instruments of an orchestra at once) to
strengthen them.
It is hardly necessary to stop to consider the orchestra employed by
Sebastian Bach, because his system of writing for orchestra was not in
the direct line of development, though modern composers have learned
much from it. In his string writing he is an excellent master for the
present, but his wood wind parts (flute, oboe, or bassoon) are written
usually in such a way that they become separate solo voices. In short,
his instrumental scores lean toward the polyphonic, rather than the
monophonic style. Handel (1685-1759) employed an orchestra much like
that of to-day, and methods not unlike those of the present in writing
for it. In fact Handel's orchestra may be regarded as the foundation of
the modern symphonic band. In his big oratorio choruses Handel used a
number of oboes to strengthen the violin parts, and a number of bassoons
to strengthen the basses, but in other parts of the same works he used
the wind instruments to enrich the general score with independent parts.
Again, he employed the wind and strings separately, contrasting one with
the other just as modern composers do.
In the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel's "Messiah" the orchestra consists of
two trumpets, kettle-drums, violins, violas, and basses. In the chorus,
"How Excellent," in "Saul," the composer uses three trombones, two
trumpets, kettle-drums, three oboes, violins, violas, and basses. For
the purpose of comparison, it may be stated that in his mass in B minor
Sebastian Bach used three trumpets, tympani (kettle-drums), two flutes,
two oboes, two bassoons, violins, violas, basses, and organ. The use of
the wooden wind instruments in pairs is noteworthy because subsequent
composers followed that practice. Haydn's earlier works are written for
two horns, two oboes, two flutes, and the usual array of strings. In his
later works Haydn employs nearly the full modern orchestra. In "The
Creation" he uses two trumpets, tympani, three trombones, two clarinets,
two horns, two oboes, two flutes, two bassoons, a contra-bassoon,
violins, violas, and basses. Haydn introduced the violoncello into the
orchestra, thus completing the modern list of bowed string instruments;
and Mozart demonstrated the value of the clarinet, thus completing the
wood wind.
Beethoven's full orchestra consisted of two flutes, two oboes, two
clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
tympani, and the usual array of strings. These instruments stand in this
order in Beethoven's scores, reading from the top of the page downward,
and subsequent composers have followed this arrangement. When voices
appear in the score, they are placed between the violin and violoncello
parts. Contemporaneous composers incline to abandon that custom, and to
place the voices just above the first violin part. This will keep the
string parts, the foundation of the accompaniment, together below the
voices, thus making the score easier for the conductor to read.
Beethoven's orchestra was substantially that of Schubert, Spohr,
Mendelssohn, Weber, and Schumann.
Later composers began to use various characteristic instruments in their
scores in order to obtain special effects of what is called instrumental
color. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) did very much to advance this line of
development, and Richard Wagner (1813-1883) carried on the work. Not
only are special instruments, such as the English horn (a wooden wind
instrument with a pastoral tone, heard, for instance, as the shepherd's
pipe in "Tannhäuser" and "Tristan and Isolde"), introduced, but the
general mass of instruments is enlarged or diminished according to the
composer's design. For instance, in the first scene of Act III., "Die
Walküre," in which is the famous "Ride of the Valkyrs," Wagner uses two
piccolos (small, high-pitched flutes, with a fife-like tone), two
flutes, three oboes, one English horn, three clarinets, one bass
clarinet, eight French horns, three bassoons, four trumpets, one bass
trumpet, four trombones, one contrabass tuba (a very deep-toned brass
instrument), four tympani, cymbals, snare-drums, two harps, and the
usual body of strings. Wagner specifies thirty-two violins (sixteen
first and sixteen second) as necessary to produce the proper balance of
tone. Older composers were content to take their chances in such
matters. In "Götterdämmerung" the funeral march is scored for three
clarinets, one bass clarinet, four horns, three bassoons, two tenor
tubas, two bass tubas, one contrabass tuba, one bass trumpet, four
trombones, tympani, and strings. The absence of flutes, oboes and
trumpets shows that Wagner was aiming at a gloomy color, to be obtained
only by the omission of such instruments and the use of an increased
number of those of low pitch.
The orchestra of to-day consists of four groups of instruments, which
can be enlarged or curtailed according to the design of the composer.
These are, in the order in which they usually stand in the score, wind
instruments of wood (the "wood wind"), wind instruments of brass (called
simply "the brass"), instruments of percussion (drums, cymbals, etc.),
and strings. The general plan of the orchestra, which has developed from
the earliest attempts at instrumental contrast, contemplates such a
distribution of instruments in each department as to make that
department capable either of independent employment, or of combination
with the whole or part of some other department, or of incorporation in
the mass of tone produced by the whole orchestra. The wood wind, for
example, consists of flutes and oboes, which are purely soprano
instruments, clarinets, which extended from upper bass to moderately
high soprano, English horn, which has a tenor range, bass clarinet,
which runs from deep bass up into treble, and bassoons, which comprise
bass, baritone, and tenor registers. That organization of instruments is
capable of independent performance, possessing, as it does, all the
components of full and extended harmony and a wide variety of color.
The brass choir consists of trumpets, which are soprano instruments,
French horns (bass to alto), trombones (bass, baritone, and tenor), and
tubas (bass). This band is capable of independent performance, or of
being joined in a body with the wood, as in military music, or of
combining with the strings on the plan seen in its infancy in Handel's
"Hallelujah" chorus. The strings, of course, contain all the elements
necessary to independence or combination. The modern orchestra, however,
has gained enormously in power from the development of methods of using
parts of the separate choirs independently or in combination. For
instance, flutes, clarinets, and bass clarinet can produce rich
four-part harmony, and so can play alone. Flutes, oboes, and bassoons
can do the same thing and produce a wholly different instrumental color.
Bassoons and French horns make fine deep-toned harmonies; and four
French horns can play alone in full harmony. Any of these little groups
can be joined with strings to get a new quality of tone. Thus it is not
difficult to see that the modern orchestra offers to the composer a
great variety of instrumental combinations, giving him a remarkable
range of coloring, and it is equally plain that these conditions have
been gradually developed by successive composers since the days of
Monteverde.