Transcriber’s Notes:
Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Equal signs “=” before and after a word or phrase indicate =bold=
in the original text.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Illustrations and music scores have been moved so they do not break up
paragraphs.
Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.
Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.
The Music-Lover’s Library
[Illustration: BEETHOVEN.]
The Orchestra
And
Orchestral Music
By W. J. Henderson
_Author of “What Is Good Music?” Etc._
With Portraits
Charles Scribner’s Sons
New York :: :: :: 1902
_Copyright, 1899, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons_
Trow Directory
Printing and Bookbinding Company
New York
To the
=_Philharmonic Society of New York_=
which has maintained through fifty-seven years its
existence as an orchestra devoted to the
performance of artistic music
Preface
_This is not a text-book. It is not a treatise on instrumentation. It
is not written for musicians, nor primarily for students of music,
though the latter may find in it information of some value to them.
This is simply an attempt to give to music lovers such facts about the
modern orchestra as will help them in assuming an intelligent attitude
toward the contemporaneous instrumental body and its performances.
The author has endeavored to put before the reader a description of
each instrument with an illustration which will enable him to identify
its tone when next heard in the delivery of the passage quoted. Some
account of the distinctive nature and functions of the strings, the
wood, the brass, and the percussion instruments has been given. With
this account go hand in hand some remarks on the development of methods
of scoring. The reader will not find such historical matter in any
other book with which the present writer is acquainted. Neither will
he find anywhere else a history of the development of the conductor,
which is given in this volume. The author has endeavored to make
his work complete by describing the duties of the conductor and the
requisites of good orchestral playing, and by recounting briefly the
story of the growth of the orchestra and the development of its music.
All other books on the orchestra which the author has seen are for
the professional musician. In making one for the amateur of music the
writer hopes to supply a need._
Contents
Part I
_How the Orchestra is Constituted_
Page
I. Instruments Played with the Bow 3
II. Wind-Instruments of Wood 19
III. Wind-instruments of Brass 30
IV. Other Instruments 37
V. The Orchestral Score 43