Hence, Bach did little toward developing the combining powers of

the wood-wind. As one writer has excellently said: “He preferred to

employ wind-instruments for the purpose of enlarging his original

design, rather than that of strengthening or decorating it. When he

added a flute or an oboe to his score, he loved not only to make it

_obbligato_, but to write it in such wise that it should form a new

real part. Hence, even in his regularly constructed arias, the voice

is scarcely so much accompanied by the various instruments employed as

made to sing in concert with them, the score containing as many real

parts as there are solo voices or instruments introduced into it.”

Dr. Parry, in his “Evolution of the Art of Music,” in speaking of the

difference between instrumentation of this kind and that of a later

date, says: “In the instrumentation of the great masters of the earlier

generation, the tone-qualities seem to be divided from one another by

innate repulsion; but in the harmonic style they seem to melt into one

another insensibly, and to become part of a composite mass of harmony

whose shades are constantly shifting and varying.”

Handel’s wood-wind is employed with greater variety than Bach’s. This

was to be expected of a composer who, in the first place, was in closer

touch with the public, and hence more likely to recognize and yield to

the demand for effects. In the second place, Handel, not being secluded

as Bach was, stood more forward in the march of musical evolution.

He was an opera-writer, and this brought him into immediate contact

with the harmonic style as practised by the Italian opera-writers. He

learned from some of them, too, the use of grandiose mass effects. The

application of these ideas to his instrumentation produced results far

different from any conceived by the introspective and historically

solitary genius of the great Bach. Handel used a larger orchestra than

Bach, yet did many things in the same way. For example, he often wrote

for his instruments in the polyphonic style, but in the accompaniments

to his great choruses he wrote for several oboes in unison with the

violins and a body of bassoons in unison with the basses. At other

times he treated his wood-wind parts as figured ornamentation of

the more simple string parts, and again he employed the strings and

wind alternately, as modern composers do so frequently. Flutes he

rarely used except as solo instruments, as in the “Sweet Bird” aria,

and clarinets he did not have. But the idea of using some of the

wind-instruments, as horns and trumpets, in pairs, had come into

existence in Handel’s time, and it was not long before this plan was

applied also to the wood-wind.

Its employment naturally began with the recognition of the inability

of the wood-wind to play such intricate passages as strings could, and

also of their power to sustain the long notes of supporting chords.

These features of wood-wind writing existed even in the scores of

Scarlatti and Lulli, but it was not until the harmonic style began

to be clearly distinguished from the polyphonic in orchestral works

that they became generally recognized. In the scores of Emmanuel Bach,

the son of Sebastian, we begin to find wood-wind treated in the pure

classic style. The chords, to be sure, are very thin, and the composer

shows a “’prentice hand” at the dovetailing of his wind parts together

so as to make a firm structure, but the skeleton of the modern form is

there.

Haydn’s scoring shows a curious combination of Handelian ideas with

later developments. The Handelian plan of strengthening string parts

with wind parts in unison seems to have taken some hold of Haydn, for

he rarely writes unsupported wood-wind passages in his symphonies.

He keeps his first violins singing the melody most of the time, and

gets variety by doubling them, now with flutes, now with oboes, again

with bassoons. A wind solo is very rare. He shows similar weakness

in writing for the wood-wind in its internal relations. His clarinet

parts usually double those of the oboes or the flutes. There is a

great deal of octave writing, and he seldom gets more than three real

parts in his wood-wind. It is only because he so constantly employs

the string quartet that his symphonic scores do not sound thin. For

example, in a passage for wood-wind and strings near the beginning

of the familiar symphony in D, the first flute, except in one chord,

doubles the second violin at the octave above, while the second flute

supports the principal notes of the melody, played by the first

violins, at the octave below. The oboes in unison double the violas at

the upper octave. The two clarinets in unison double the first flute

an octave below. The bassoons and basses play in unison. Toward the

end of the last movement there is a passage in which the wind plays

sustained chords, and in this the wood is treated in a more open

style of harmony. Haydn learned much from Mozart, however, and in the

“Creation” and “Seasons,” his writing for wood-wind shows much greater

freedom, and a decidedly more definite attempt to get at the tonal

characteristics of the instruments.

[Illustration: HAYDN.]

There can be no question that Mozart’s orchestration shows a large

improvement on Haydn’s, and it is, perhaps, easier for the amateur to

discern this in his treatment of the wood-wind than anywhere else.

Passages contrasting the whole wood-choir with the strings are more

numerous, and the combinations of wood with strings show more definite

attempts to put new tints upon the symphonic canvas. One finds, for

instance, in the G minor symphony the flute tone contrasted with

the oboe, combinations of flute and oboe contrasted with bassoon,

combinations of flutes, bassoon, and strings, and other effects which

give life and variety to the instrumental coloring.

Nevertheless, a conventional manner of treating the wood-wind found

its way into general use, and it prevailed until the romanticists, in

reaching out for new forms and manners of expression, revolutionized

the system of scoring. The old-fashioned way was to employ the four

pairs of wood-wind instruments always in thirds and sixths. The flutes

almost always took the melody and the next interval below it. The

oboes either doubled the flutes in the octave below, or the first

oboe doubled the second flute, and the second oboe took the next lower

degree of the chord. The clarinets filled in the middle voices, and the

bassoons played the bass, most frequently in octaves. The harmony was

close, and the texture of this instrumentation was always solid, and,

it must be admitted, at times muddy. This manner of writing is found in

all Beethoven’s earlier works. For example, here is the opening of the

first symphony, the horns and strings (pizzicati) also appearing in the

score:

[Music]

That is perfectly adapted to its purpose; but the chances are that a

composer of to-day would have used three flutes, three clarinets, and

three bassoons, and would have thickened the harmony by raising the

clarinet voices and bringing the first bassoon up nearer the middle,

thus:

[Music]

Brahms followed Beethoven’s early style of scoring for wood, which,

it must always be recollected, lies at the foundation of the art. An

example from Brahms’s C minor symphony will show the modern writer’s

adoption of his predecessor’s plan:

[Music]

The modern style of writing for the wood-wind choir introduces more

passages in contrary motion and a more dispersed harmony. The close

chords of the classicists cannot be excelled for their purpose, but

the romanticists had new aims and they took advantage not only of

unusual tone-tints but of the increased richness brought about by using

more voices and extending their chords. Beethoven’s symphonies show

a rapid progress toward the modern flexibility of methods in writing

for wood-wind. For instance, note the lovely effect of this piece of

contrary motion in the Fifth Symphony:

[Music]

As we advance through the pages of the master’s symphonies we find a

constantly increasing flexibility in the treatment of the wood, until

in the Ninth we meet with passages containing effects which, when

closely examined, seem to be almost amazingly modern. Of course, one

never finds in Beethoven’s scores any attempt to make an effect for its

own sake. The master symphonist was altogether too busy in giving his

thought expression to think of little tricks of instrumental dress.

Because of his continence in this matter some modern commentators

have expressed the belief that these symphonies would be improved

if re-orchestrated according to contemporaneous methods. I presume

that someone will eventually try the experiment, and then it will be

discovered that Beethoven’s instrumentation was perfectly adapted to

his musical ideas. On the other hand, a good deal of our modern music

would stand revealed in its naked thinness if it were re-orchestrated

in the austere style of Beethoven or with the sunny simplicity of the

Mozartian manner. The extreme development of wood-wind writing as

known in our day is to be found in the scores of Wagner. No one has

surpassed his treatment of the wood in his earlier dramas, and the

reader may accept _Elsa’s_ entrance to the cathedral in Act II. of

“Lohengrin,” and the exit of _Elizabeth_ in Act III. of “Tannhäuser,”

as complete expositions of writing for the unsupported wood-wind. In

the introduction to the third act of “Lohengrin” appears this passage,

which shows how Wagner could use his wood in relation to the rest of

his orchestra:

[Music]

[Music]

The reader will at once see the open style in which the wood-wind parts

are constructed. The horns serve to enrich and deepen the harmony,

while the strings are used chiefly for a rhythmic effect. Weber’s

scoring is full of admirable writing for the wood-wind, and for other

fine examples I can once more refer the reader to Mendelssohn’s

“Midsummer Night’s Dream” music.

The immense variety of coloring to be obtained from the wood is due

largely to its power of producing independent harmony. Owing to the

large register of the clarinets, they can be used as either soprano

or low contralto instruments, while the wide scale of the bassoons

permits them to be treated as basses, barytones, or tenors. It thus

becomes possible to write in full and euphonious four-part harmony for

two flutes and two clarinets, two oboes and two clarinets, two flutes

and two bassoons, two oboes and two bassoons, or two clarinets and

two bassoons. Each of these combinations differs in color from the

others. If now a bass clarinet be added, it becomes possible to give

it the fundamental bass and to use the bassoons for middle voices. The

addition of an English horn gives further possibilities. If the number

of flutes, clarinets, and bassoons be increased to three of each, the

composer has still more combinations. And when it is recollected that

every one of these wind-instruments can be used as a solo voice, the

range of variety becomes wider yet. But the reader must also bear in

mind that the addition of horns and strings still further alters the

tonal colors. In short, the wood-wind provides the most useful means of

giving variety of color to an orchestral score, and all modern writing

abounds in ingenious, surprising, and expressive effects made with the

wood choir. Yet when the thunder of an orchestral tutti is required,

there is no better way to write for wood than that of Beethoven’s

symphonies.

I have said nothing yet in this chapter about the piccolo and the

contra-fagotto. The piccolo is a much misused instrument, but it

is capable of admirable effects, as may be seen in the storm in

Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony, the magic fire-music in “Die Walküre,”

or the “Dance of the Automatons” in Delibes’s “Sylvia” ballet. The

double-bassoon, or contra-fagotto, allows the composer to carry the

bass of his wood-wind choir an octave lower than the compass of the

bassoon. The instrument is coarse in tone and not capable of performing

rapid passages, but it has its value, as is shown by its employment in

the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Brahms’s “Chorale

St. Anthony” variations. A double-bass clarinet has been invented by

a New York musician. I have not heard this instrument, but am told

by competent judges that it is of high value. It carries the bass an

octave lower than the bass clarinet, and is capable of great agility

and of the finest gradations of tone. Richard Strauss, Weingartner, and

other German musicians have promised to introduce it in future scores,

and I dare say it will become a fixture in the orchestra. The great

value of the clarinet color to the orchestra cannot be overestimated,

and any increase in its range and intensity will surely be welcomed by

composers.

IX

The Brass and the “Battery”

The brass choir may be dismissed with comparative brevity, because

methods of writing for it have changed on lines similar to those

followed by the wood. In the early scores one finds that the trumpets

were the most noticeable members of the brass, but in later music

the horns are far and away the most important. It is possible to get

almost any amount of richness, solidity, and variety of color out of

an orchestra composed of the wood-wind, four horns, and strings; but

if two trumpets and three trombones be substituted for the horns,

the ingenuity of the composer will be severely taxed to prevent his

work from sounding coarse in forte passages. One reason for this is

that, when played moderato, horns blend perfectly with either wood

or strings, and when played forte they become brassy in tone and can

be made to give a good imitation of trombones. Let the reader note,

when he again hears the prelude to the third act of “Lohengrin,” that

the brass theme is played the first time by the horns, which sound

like trombones robbed of their roughness. The second time the theme is

heard the trombones enter and the tone at once becomes brassy. In fact,

it may be said at once that the brassy quality of brass instruments

comes out fully only when the tone is forced. When it sings moderato

the brass choir is capable of the most beautiful effects of rich,

organ-like sonority. One has only to recall as a perfect example of

this the prayer in the first act of “Lohengrin,” one of the most

effective of all modern pieces of writing for brass. When however,

immense sonority is required, the fortissimo of the brass choir is the

composer’s heavy gun.

The treatment of the trumpet parts in the works of Bach and Handel

will be found to differ greatly from the modern manner of writing for

them. In the first place, the instruments employed by those composers

must have had mouth-pieces of a different kind from those of to-day,

or else the players knew some things which ours do not. Both Bach and

Handel wrote passages for the trumpet so high that contemporaneous

musicians cannot perform them. But that is a fact of less importance

to the reader of the present book than the general principle of the

scoring. The old composers, then, wrote for trumpets in pairs and made

them do a great deal of their work in octaves, except in some of the

earliest scores, in which three trumpets were sometimes employed. Even

Monteverde wrote for one clarino (a small trumpet), three trombe (the

ordinary trumpet), and four tromboni. Handel used three trumpets in the

“Dettingen Te Deum,” and Bach in the “Lobe den Herrn.”

Haydn used the trumpets, horns, and drums in the primitive style. The

parts were written either in octaves or in sixths--occasionally in

thirds--and on tonic and dominant chords, worked with the drums chiefly

to enforce the tutti. Passages such as the following abound in Haydn’s

symphonies:

[Music]

It seems hardly possible to contrive a more hollow plan of writing

than that which gives to five instruments only three notes of a

chord (though the horn parts actually sound an octave lower), yet

it is a method which survived till Beethoven’s time, and, so far

as the trumpets go, even the mighty Ludwig made no improvement upon

it. Mozart’s scores show a very slight advance upon Haydn’s. He more

frequently gives three notes of the chord to the brass instruments,

but he uses them in the same general way. Of course, these old

composers were much restricted by the mechanical limitations of their

instruments. They had the old keyless horns and trumpets, and not

having the whole scale at their command, they had to write with much

restraint. In the horn parts they were further compelled to remember

that certain notes could be produced only in the “stopped” form, that

is, by the use of one hand inserted in the bell of the instrument.

These stopped notes differed wholly in quality from the open tones.

This trouble lasted until the F valve horn was perfected within the

present century. Before that, however, composers had begun to endeavor

to give more variety to the horn parts. Weber and Beethoven both made

admirable use of this, the most noble and expressive of the brass

instruments, and the scores of Rossini also contain some excellent

specimens of horn writing. Rossini, indeed, who was the son of a

horn-player, may be said to have introduced a new style of writing for

the instrument, treating it with great brilliancy as a florid solo

singer. But the substantial principles of horn writing, as practised in

the modern orchestra, began with Mozart, who used the instrument with

much skill, especially in those scores which do not call for trumpets.

Beethoven made more exacting demands upon the instrument, and there is

no more effective horn passage in existence than the famous trio of the

scherzo in the “Eroica” symphony. The passage is too long for quotation

here, but is, of course, familiar to every music-lover. As an example

of perfect writing for a solo horn nothing in symphonic music is better

than the opening of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky’s fifth symphony.

The methods of employing horns are so numerous that it is not

practicable to recount all of them. It may be said, however, that in

small scores, which call for wood-wind, two horns and strings, these

instruments are often used to form chords with either the wind or

the strings. Two horns and two bassoons make very effective harmony;

in fact, when the four instruments are played moderato it is almost

impossible to distinguish the bassoons from the horns. The latter also

blend excellently with clarinets or the low tones of flutes. In writing

for four horns some composers give the two upper notes of the chord

to the first and second and the two lower to the third and fourth,

while others dovetail the parts by giving the first and third notes

to the first and second horns. Of course, either method is subject to

variation, as in a passage like this:

[Music]

Here the dovetailing of parts is carried throughout, yet in the third

bar the third and fourth horns double the fundamental bass in octaves.

The trombone is a very familiar instrument, and little needs to be

added to what has already been said about it. There are slide and

valve trombones. The former is the kind always employed in symphonic

orchestras. The reader will recognize the instrument by the action

of the player’s arm in moving the slide in and out. This shortening

and lengthening of the tube of the instrument changes its key and

thus enables the player to produce in open tones every note of the

chromatic scale. The valve trombone is played with keys like those of

a cornet. It is less brilliant and sonorous than the slide instrument.

Trombones were employed as far back as Monteverde’s “Orfeo,” early in

the seventeenth century, but there seems to have been no definite use

of them till the time of Gluck. He thoroughly appreciated the majestic

dignity of dramatic utterance of which the trombone was capable, and

he used it with eloquent effect. Furthermore, he established for all

time the custom of writing for trombones in three parts. After him, as

Gevaert pertinently notes, the three trombones became a distinctive

feature of dramatic scores, for the classic symphony found no use

for their immense sonority till Beethoven called it to his aid in

voicing the triumphant emotions of the finale of the Fifth Symphony.

Nevertheless, the trombone is not necessarily an instrument to be used

only in producing great volumes of tone. A beautiful example of its

value in rich and subdued harmony, in company with other instruments,

is to be found in the accompaniment to _Sarastro’s_ grand air in

Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” as is shown on the following page.

[Music]

The three trombones, as in this example, usually play three-note

chords, except when required to play in unison. The tuba fills out the

harmony by doubling the bass part in the lower octave, or forming a

four-part chord with the three trombones. There are tubas in several

keys, but it is customary to write for the instrument without making

any transposition. There is a fine tuba solo, in unison with the

double-basses, at the opening of Wagner’s “Eine Faust” overture, and

frequent examples of harmony for three trombones and tuba are to be

found in the works of the Bayreuth master. In writing for the full

brass choir alone a composer has the choice of several methods. He may

give the melody to a trumpet or cornet, and use the other instruments

for the harmony, or he may let a horn (or two horns in unison) take the

melody. If he desires much force, he may give the melody to a trumpet

and double it with a trombone. The natural method, however, is to let a

trumpet, which is a good soprano voice, sing the air, while the other

trumpet and three of the horns take the middle voices, the fourth horn

and first and second trombones the lower middle voices, the third

trombone and tuba the bass. Similar methods are employed where the

brass joins with the rest of the orchestra in the thunder of a tutti

fortissimo. The reader will find a most admirable example of this style

of writing in the climax of the prelude to “Lohengrin.”

It should be noted that the brass choir offers certain possibilities

of color both within itself and in combination with other instruments.

Three trumpets are capable of independent harmony, as are four horns,

and three trombones. Again, owing to the deep range of the horn,

trumpets and horns may form a separate choir, or either trumpets or

horns may be united with trombones. The entire brass band may be used

with the wood, the strings being silent, or with the strings and

without wood. Part of the brass may be used with part of the wood,

as in the opening of the “Tannhäuser” overture, where two clarinets,

two horns, and two bassoons produce a complete and satisfying

harmony. Weird and bizarre effects can be produced by combinations

of contrasting tones. Perhaps there is no better example than this

remarkable use of flutes and trombones in Berlioz’s “Requiem”:

[Music]

These notes had never been written for trombones before, and the

composer, whose knowledge of the capacities of instruments has never

been excelled, wrote in the margin of the score: “These notes are in

the instruments and the players must get them out.”

As I have already noted, the operatic composers, in their search after

dramatic effects, invented many of the instrumental combinations

afterward adopted by the composers of purely orchestral music. The

scores of Mozart and Gluck, for instance, are rich in passages which

make use of the harmony of trombones, and the reader who wishes to

study such effects in their early form should note the accompaniment

to the words of the _Commendatore_ in the cemetery scene of “Don

Giovanni,” to the solo and chorus, “Dieu puissant,” Act I., scene 3, of

Gluck’s “Alceste,” the air “Divinités du styx” in the same work, and

the chorus “Vengeons et la nature,” Act II., scene 4, of “Iphigenie en

Tauride.”

All that the moderns can do with trombone harmonies they learned from

Gluck, and by applying his use of dispersed chords to the whole brass

choir they have produced new and noble orchestral colors. Where did

Wagner learn such things as this, if not from Mozart and Gluck?

[Music]

Not much needs to be added to that already written about the percussive

instruments employed in the orchestra. The tympani remain the most

important of these. It has been found that one player can perform

upon three drums with little more difficulty than upon two, and hence

composers now frequently score for three, and sometimes for four. It

is not uncommon for large symphonic scores to call for three tympani

together with bass-drum, cymbals, and other percussive instruments.

Something has already been said about the methods of writing for

tympani, but there is a little to add. It has been noted that the

primitive manner of writing was to give one drum the fundamental note

of the tonic chord, and the other that of the dominant, but previous

to Beethoven’s day it was the invariable practice to write the tonic

above and the dominant below, thus tuning the drums at the interval of

a fourth. The other style, with the tonic below and the dominant above,

making a fifth, was introduced by Beethoven. The same master saw the

advantage of tuning his tympani in still other ways, and in the finale

of the Eighth Symphony and the scherzo of the Ninth he wrote for them

in octaves at their extreme compass (F to F). Again, in the beginning

of the last act of “Fidelio,” he wrote their parts in A and E flat in

a dissonant passage of much dramatic power. Weber followed Beethoven’s

example and wrote for tympani in C and A in the incantation scene of

“Der Freischütz,” and Wagner has made a similar use of the drums in the

beginning of the third act of “Siegfried.”

[Music]

In general, it may be said that until the close of the eighteenth

century composers employed tympani only in brilliant passages, such as

marches, overtures, jubilant choruses, or hymns of thanksgiving; and

in these they were always heard with the trumpets. It was Beethoven

who took the shackles from the expressive powers of these valuable

instruments and showed how they could be made to utter notes of

overpowering solemnity and mystery.

The bass-drum is frequently used in the orchestra either with or

without the cymbals, and the latter are often heard without the drum.

Both instruments are sadly overworked by noisy composers, yet they have

their value. The military snare-drum is used in characteristic passages

where a military idea is to be suggested. Tambourines and castanets

are also used in appropriate places. The gong, which is said to have

found its way into western Europe at the time of the French Revolution,

when it was used as a funeral bell, found its way into the opera-house

as an aid to music of scenes of death or terror, as in Meyerbeer’s

resurrection of the nuns in “Robert le Diable.” It is now used

occasionally by the symphonists in passages of portentous significance.

Bells came into the orchestra for dramatic purposes, and are employed

in various ways, some of which are so familiar that it is barely

necessary to mention them. Handel employed a whole chime in a passage

in his “Saul,” and Mozart used a set of little bells in “The Magic

Flute.” Meyerbeer has called for a single deep-toned bell to imitate

the tocsin of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in “Les Huguenots,” and

Wagner has used several in “Parsifal.” The latter composer has used

the carillon (little bells) with fine effect in the magic-fire music

of “Die Walküre.” The lover of orchestral music needs no special

information about bells. They are capable of musical pitch, and their

notation is in the treble or bass clef, as the case may be.

The xylophone is sometimes employed in music of an artistic sort.

A most excellent example of its possibilities may be found in

Saint-Säens’ “Danse Macabre,” where it is supposed to imitate the

rattling of bones in the grim dance of Death.

Score-readers will often find the parts for those instruments of

percussion which are without musical pitch, such as triangles, cymbals,

bass-drums, etc., written not on a stave, but on a single line. The

rhythm can be indicated satisfactorily in this way, and that is all

that is needed.

X

Qualities of Good Orchestration

It is now possible to speak more in detail about those essential

qualities of good orchestration to which reference was made at the

beginning of this part of the book. Unless I have failed to make myself

understood, the reader will be prepared, in applying the principles

of orchestration to those works which may come under his attention,

to benefit by historical perspective. He will not expect of Haydn

or Mozart such richness and complexity of scoring as he will demand

and find in the works of contemporaneous composers. The technics

of orchestral writing are very thoroughly and widely understood in

our day. It is expected, as a matter of course, that every composer

shall understand them. Now, this does not purport to be a text-book

on orchestration, yet it is desirable that something be said for the

information of the amateur of music about the requirements of good

orchestration. The object of a volume of this kind is to help people

to enjoy music by pointing out what composers have designed for their

enjoyment. The pleasure to be derived from the performance of an

orchestral composition must naturally be largely increased when the

listener is alert to catch all the varieties of excellence which may be

combined in it. Orchestration, as I have already said, does not mean

the playing of an orchestra, though the word is frequently misused

in that sense. It means writing for an orchestra, and it has certain

requirements not always to be found even in the works of the great

masters. Schumann, for example, scored very poorly, and some of his

works suffer by reason of his inability to clothe his poetic thoughts

in the most eloquent instrumental language. Meyerbeer, on the other

hand, was a veritable trickster with instruments, and could produce a

theatrical effect with a penny-ballad idea, while Berlioz could enchant

an audience with no idea at all. Beethoven and Wagner are two of the

perfect models of orchestral writing, the former in the classic and

early romantic style, and the latter in the fully developed romantic

style.

[Illustration: WAGNER.]

The qualities of good orchestration are solidity, balance of tone,

contrast, and variety. By solidity is meant a close warp of the

instrumental sounds which does not seem to have holes in it. A chord

played by a full orchestra should sound like the utterance of one

great instrument, not like the utterance of a number of individuals.

The tones of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, brass, and strings

should blend into one grand body. When such a result is achieved,

whether it be with three instruments or one hundred, the tone is said

to be solid. If the tone is not solid, it is because the harmony is not

properly dispersed. Either the chords are not written in a sufficiently

extended form or they are distributed wrongly among the instruments.

The first requirement of solidity is good writing for the strings. It

is absolutely necessary that their part should be so written that it

is capable of independence; that is, it should sound solid when played

without the other instruments. The composer must give each note of a

chord to that instrument which is best qualified to utter it, and he

must write his chords so that they are suited to orchestral enunciation.

Pianists make sad mistakes when they come to write for orchestra,

because they try to write in a piano style. They are so accustomed to

seeing a melody in the treble clef and all the accompaniment in the

bass, that they frequently fail to find any use for their soprano

instruments except the utterance of the melody, while all the barytone

and bass instruments grumble a muddy accompaniment, and thus, as

musicians say, the orchestra is “all top and bottom.” The illustration

below will help to explain what I mean. It shows the first two measures

of “Home, Sweet Home,” scored à la pianist, with the orchestra all top

and bottom, and as an orchestral writer would spread it out in full

harmony and with just a trifle of instrumental effect in the arpeggio

for the second clarinet doubled by the ’celli pizzicati, and the basses

also written pizzicati to accentuate the attack of each chord.

Even in writing so simple a thing as this, one must keep in mind always

the relative tonal powers of the various instruments. For instance, in

the second measure the first trumpet should play the B and then descend

to the G, because otherwise it would make the upper D too strong and

destroy the effect of the melody. The first trombone should do the same

thing. The upper D in each chord should go to the first horn and the

first bassoon.

[Music]

Balance of tone is an expression used to indicate a preservation of

the equilibrium of power among the three choirs, so that one shall

not be heard too clearly at the expense of another. In most instances

this depends upon principles similar to those which govern solidity,

but it also requires a constant consideration of the sonority of the

three choirs regarded as separate bodies. For instance, the wood-wind

instruments cannot possibly be played as softly as the strings; hence,

if the composer wishes to get a pianissimo effect, he must not write

full chords for the wood. Strings, with clarinets or flutes in the

lower register, produce an excellent pianissimo. Cornets, on the other

hand, cannot play pianissimo along with strings, because their softest

tone is louder than that of the strings, and the balance is destroyed.

Balance of tone, when all the instruments are playing together, is

largely dependent upon the judgment of the conductor. He should see

to it, for instance, that his brass instruments do not play too

loudly. But it is also a matter of scoring, and frequently a conductor

is helpless in the presence of the written page. In the scherzo of

Schumann’s E flat symphony there is a passage in which the first

theme is given to the clarinets, bassoon, second violins, violas, and

’cellos, while the first violins, trumpets, and horns play chords above

them. All are directed to play mezzo-forte, and the result is that the

brass chords quite overpower the melody. A similar passage is to be

found in the andante of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. No conductor can

get a perfect balance of tone out of such passages.

Contrast is obtained by employing instruments of different tone-quality

to play the principal parts at different times. A principal melodic

idea may be introduced by a trumpet or a clarinet, and continued by

flutes or oboes, and finally sung by all the first violins. Sometimes

the wood-wind plays alone, to be succeeded by the strings. These

alternations of tonal color produce contrasts, without which the

richest and most solid scoring might become monotonous. Variety is the

result of mixing the tonal tints. For instance, some passages will

be written for two flutes, two horns and strings; presently all the

strings cease to sound except the first violins, which chant the melody

supported by a harmony of brass; now the tone of the clarinets mingles

with that of the violins, and the combination of the two produces a

new color. Variety is also obtained by giving melodic fragments, not

essential parts of the melody, to some of the instruments not engaged

in voicing the principal theme. As the author has had occasion to say

elsewhere:

“A great many persons do not hear anything definitely except the

principal melody, while beautiful bits of counterpoint and exquisite

effects of harmony are lost to them because they have not learned how

to follow the many voices of an orchestra. Every person should acquire

the habit of ear-analysis. The amount of pleasure added to the hearing

of a symphony by ability to hear all the instruments at once is what

might be added to the delight of seeing a painting if the power to

perceive the colors were given to one who had before noticed only the

drawing.”

The student of orchestral music will find great solidity and balance

of tone in the works of the early masters. Bach’s writing is always

substantial, but there is no large amount of contrast and variety

in it. This is partly owing to the lack of instruments and partly

to the meagre technical resources of those wind-instruments which

he had. The oboe was Bach’s mainstay as a wind voice, and its range

of expressiveness, of color, of dynamic gradation, and of agility,

is small. The wood-wind choir could not reach its full measure of

usefulness till it had acquired the clarinet, which has within itself a

considerable range of tone-color, is a far more agile instrument than

the oboe, and possesses in a far higher degree than any other wood-wind

instrument the power of increasing and diminishing the volume of tone.

It is, indeed, as Berlioz has said in his enthusiastic style, the true

dramatic soprano of the orchestra. “This beautiful soprano instrument,

so ringing, so rich in penetrating accents, when employed in masses,

gains, as a solo, in delicacy, evanescent shadowings, and mysterious

tenderness what it loses in force and powerful brilliancy.... It is the

one of all the wind-instruments which can best breathe forth, swell,

diminish and die away its sound.”

Without the clarinet, however, Bach and Handel accomplished much with

the means at their command. Witness the former’s lovely piece of

writing for a horn and two bassoons in the “Quoniam” of the famous

mass in B minor, and the latter’s admirable coloring with even

strings alone, as in “Angels ever Bright and Fair,” and “Suddenly

There was Round About Him a Multitude.” The possibilities of coloring

increased as new instruments came into use, and the clarinet was at

once appreciated by Mozart, who may be said to have made the first

systematic attempts at specific tone-coloring.

The completion of the wood-wind choir by the introduction of the

clarinet gave needed freedom to composers. Haydn in his old age

advanced beyond Mozart in tone-coloring, while Beethoven, who, as I

have shown, had a special feeling for the individuality of instruments,

developed the features of contrast and variety far beyond anything

which his predecessors had conceived. Weber’s orchestral technic

is immense. He understood thoroughly all the requirements of good

orchestration, and to this day his works sound full, sonorous, and

brilliant, even when heard at concerts where the most recent products

are displayed. With Weber, the romantic movement, of which I shall have

more to say hereafter, was fairly launched, and its representative

composers have all employed every resource of contrast and variety

without neglecting solidity and balance of tone. Brahms is one of the

moderns who did not master the technic of orchestration. He wrote heavy

chords low in the bass in his piano music, and he carried this practice

into his orchestration, with the result that his scoring is almost

always thick and heavy in the middle voices. Wagner, on the other hand,

knew how to write deep, sonorous basses without disturbing the clarity

of his work. Most of the French composers score beautifully. In all the

field of opera there is not a warmer or more delicately refined score

than that of “Faust,” while M. Saint-Säens’s orchestration is at once

the model and the despair of young composers.

Amateurs of music will find, as they advance in the study of scores,

that every composer has a distinct style. For instance, Tschaikowsky

wrote much that was weird, sombre, or melancholy, and the music-lover

will find that he made extensive use of the upper register of the

bassoon (and, indeed, of its whole scale), of the low notes of

clarinets, and of the English horn to aid him in producing a gloomy,

dry color. Liszt’s instrumentation is always rich and heavy; Dvorák’s

always strong, clear, and bright. Beethoven has little peculiarities,

such as doubling a melody in the lower octave with a bassoon. Meyerbeer

is fond of queer combinations, such as English horn and piccolo.

Richard Strauss writes staccato chords for trumpets, and makes horns

do things which fifty years ago would have been deemed impossible.

But the fundamental principles of orchestration cannot be violated by

any writer with impunity, and the student will find these principles

epitomized and amply illustrated in the nine symphonies of the supreme

master of symphonic composition, Ludwig von Beethoven.

XI

Qualities of Orchestral Performance

Perhaps the first requisite for good orchestral performance should be

set forth as good instruments. It is not too much to say that some

orchestras are seriously injured by the presence of half a dozen

vulgar-toned fiddles among the violins, by a very yellow clarinet among

the wood, or a blatant cornet where a mellow trumpet ought to be. This

is seldom the case in a regularly maintained concert orchestra, yet it

does happen sometimes even there. The New York Philharmonic Society

suffers a good deal from this cause. The orchestra is the society, and

many of its members never play in any artistic concerts except those

of the organization. They have poor instruments, which do not aid in

the production of a noble tone, such as should come from an orchestra

of this kind. Again, there are individual players whose peculiar

faults are displayed to the general disadvantage of an orchestra. The

concert-master (leading first violin) of a certain New York orchestra

cannot play in tune and has a vicious style of bowing. The first oboe

of the same orchestra has a peculiar tone, which robs his instrument of

its individuality and makes it resemble a clarinet. A well-known solo

horn player produces from his instrument a tone which sounds more like

that of a valve trombone or a euphonium than that of a French horn.

Such individual faults injure the general effect of an orchestra’s

playing, though they are not strictly to be classed under the head

of qualities of orchestral performance. The requisites of concert

orchestral playing are the following:

Quality, solidity, and balance of tone; precision, unanimity,

flexibility, and light and shade.

The quality of tone which proceeds from an orchestra should be smooth

and mellow. It should never be possible for the audience to hear the

rasping of stringed instruments, nor the gasping of brass ones. The

tone of an orchestra should be capable of growing to its full power

without pantings. It should always flow freely and with liquid purity.

It should never reveal its own mechanism. One should never be able to

detect the scraping of the bow which makes the fiddle speak, nor the

vibrating of the reed in the throat of the clarinet. The tone of a

great orchestra should come forth spontaneously and without apparent

effort, as that of a great singer does, filling every cranny of the

auditorium and seizing upon the heartstrings of every hearer.

And it should have solidity, which is easier to hear than to describe.

One knows at once when the tone sounds thin and anæmic and when it

sounds healthy and full-blooded, but it is not easy to point out

the peculiarities of this quality. Sometimes an orchestra’s tone is

not solid because there are too few players for the demands of the

auditorium. Sometimes it is because the instrumentalists are not

playing exactly together, and the vibrations of each tone of the

melody, as caused by say a dozen violins, are not isochronous. Again,

tone lacks solidity at times because the individual performers are

not capable, and it is frequently, like want of quality, due to poor

instruments.

Balance of tone has the same meaning in performance as it has in

orchestration. It is equality of dynamic force among the constituent

parts of the band. As already said, it is the result partly of good

orchestration and partly of the guiding skill of the conductor; but

it depends also in a measure upon the constitution of the orchestra.

The average theatre orchestra is an eloquent demonstration of the bad

effects of poor balance among the instruments. The desperate struggles

of two first violins, one second, one viola, one ’cello, and one

double-bass to produce sufficient sound to make themselves heard in

forte passages against the sonorous pealing of a cornet, a trombone,

and a pair of tympani, are as vain as they are ridiculous. Such efforts

are repeated on a larger scale when modern symphonic music is performed

by an orchestra whose strings are led by six first violins. It is not

possible for six firsts, six seconds, four violas, three ’cellos, and

three double-basses to maintain a proper balance of tone against two

or three flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets,

three trombones, a tuba, and tympani. An orchestra with six first

violins should not attempt music orchestrated in the romantic style. It

would be much better for such an orchestra to omit two horns and add

two violins, and confine itself to music suitable to such an array of

instruments. When there are only six first violins it is not wise to

attempt works which call for divisions of those six into four parts.

It is always absurd to hear an orchestra with three ’cellos trying to

“fake” the opening measures of Rossini’s “William Tell” overture, and

in the tutti the trombone rages like a lion. It is generally conceded

in this country that a concert orchestra requires about 60 stringed

instruments to give a proper balance to the wood and brass. I have

already spoken of the constitution of the Boston Symphony Orchestra,

which has 58 strings on a basis of 16 first violins. The Chicago

Orchestra has 61, and the New York Philharmonic Society, 78. The

London Philharmonic has 54, the Vienna Philharmonic, 68, and the Paris

Conservatoire, 60.

Given a proper array of instruments, the preservation of balance of

tone is due chiefly to the conductor, though it is also necessary

that the players should not be troubled with individual ambition.

The occasional solo affords the individual player an opportunity to

display his powers, but at all other times he should be content to

sacrifice his glory for the general result. A good orchestra is in this

respect like a perfect boat-crew; every man in it should be part of a

machine to produce a single effect. Whenever one man in a boat-crew is

seized with a notion that he can pull the whole boat himself, the crew

goes to pieces and loses the race. So in an orchestra, if the second

trombonist, for example, is convinced that the audience ought to hear

his part, he destroys the balance of the performance and oversets

the composer’s purpose. Of course, a conductor must do all he can to

see that the ambitious second trombonist does not mis-behave, but it

requires a real _esprit de corps_ in an orchestra to maintain an ideal

balance of tone. Brass is blatant in forte passages if allowed to

have its own way, and wood, unrestrained, is frequently too strong in

moderato or piano bits.

[Illustration: CHARLES LAMOUREUX.]

Plenty of strings is the only remedy for a bad balance which careful

playing will not correct, and a plenty of strings is to be found only

in large concert orchestras. Even in opera-houses the strings are

often too few, while in theatres they nearly always are. The average

theatrical manager knows very little about music and cares less. A

business manager who knew something of the tone art was once engaged by

a manager who controlled a travelling exhibition of “Midsummer Night’s

Dream,” with all Mendelssohn’s music. He thought his exhibition worthy

of the attention of the metropolis, but the business manager said to

him:

“If we go into New York, we’ll have to increase the orchestra.”

“What for?” replied the manager. “We have all sorts of instruments now,

haven’t we?”

“But we ought to have more first violins.”

“What! more than _two_?”

But, after all, the theatre is hardly the place to look for art in

music. The concert-hall and the opera-house are its homes, but owing

to the conditions which surround the performance of opera in most

places, only the concert orchestra can be expected to show the highest

possibilities of performance. In such an orchestra we may expect to

find a proper distribution of instruments, and having that, we should

demand a perfect solidity and balance of tone. I can hardly put too

much emphasis on the necessity of good tone. Although the mere quality

of sound belongs to the lowest department of musical excellence, the

sensuous, it is nevertheless an instrument of the greatest power in

the presentation of musical thought. There is something vital in a

noble tone, something enthralling and inspiring. One recognizes it

immediately when it is the voice of a distinguished singer, and I have

seen audiences moved to amazing enthusiasm by a glorious voice which

had neither dramatic intelligence nor vocal cunning to aid the potent

spell of its pure quality. An orchestra should be a mighty singer in

every sense, and it must have the first requisite of one--a fine voice.

There should be nothing cheap or vulgar in its tone. It should be one

grand flow of gorgeous, all-surrounding sound, smooth, sweet, mellow,

and pure, whether heard in the aërial whisper of the last bars of the

“Lohengrin” prelude or the thunderous peal of the “Kaisermarsch.”

Tone being assured, the next traits of vital importance in orchestral

performance are precision and unanimity. Precision is a feature of

attack, while unanimity refers to those parts of a passage not included

in the attack. Both are dependent upon the elementary business of

keeping together. If the players of an orchestra are not at all times

absolutely at one in their work, there can be neither precision nor

unanimity. Precision is keeping absolutely together in beginning

and finishing, whether it be a detached chord or tone, or a phrase.

Unanimity is keeping together, in time and force and all other

requirements, between the beginning and the end. The act of commencing

a tone is called the attack. This should be so precise that the tone

seems to be produced by a single instrument, not by a number. If it is

a detached tone, or a phrase like that at the beginning of Beethoven’s

C minor symphony, every instrument engaged in its utterance should

cease to sound at exactly the same instant. Precision is a matter in

which many auditors are deceived. I well remember how I gaped in wonder

in my boyish days when I heard an orchestra under Theodore Thomas play

a series of staccato chords with such precision that they came out like

the cracks of a whip. I have since learned that this is one of the

easiest feats of an orchestra. It is a far greater test of precision

to play with absolute sharpness and clearness of cut a passage such as

this from the Ninth Symphony:

[Music]

Furthermore, precision is just as necessary to the correct performance

of flowing cantabile passages as it is to those of vigorous declamatory

style. It belongs to the general department of accuracy, and without

accuracy in such features as the duration of sounds, no orchestral

playing can have color, force, or finish.

Unanimity, as I have said, means keeping together in matters other

than the beginning and ending of a tone or phrase. Attention has been

called to the fact that if the notes of a melody and its harmonies are

not played in exactly the same time by all the instruments engaged in

their performance, the quality of tone is seriously impaired; but it

must now be added that further injury comes in the shape of destruction

of the outlines of the rhythm. This is such an important factor in all

music that to decrease its clearness is like blurring the outlines of

a drawing. When the rhythm of an orchestral composition or the outlines

in a painting are destroyed, there remains nothing but a blurred

color-scheme. A color-scheme is often very pretty, but it is no more a

composition than the view in a kaleidoscope is a landscape.

Unanimity, furthermore, includes something beyond mere clearness

of enunciation. It embraces also accent. In such a phrase as that

quoted above from the Ninth Symphony, there are a series of natural

accentuations, and it is essential to a brilliant and stirring

utterance of the phrase that every instrument in the orchestra should

put the accents in the same places and give them the same amount of

force. In passages which are not written for the whole orchestra there

should be unanimity in accent among those for which they are written.

In fact, an orchestra should have absolutely military accuracy in all

its work, and this presupposes long and arduous drill and extended

association. Permanency is a necessity to fine orchestral work. Men who

have played together a long time, even under an inferior conductor,

will play with much more precision and unanimity than men newly brought

together under the beat of a famous director. The highest results are

attainable only with a permanent orchestra under a competent conductor.

But with all this precision and unanimity the playing of an orchestra

should be flexible. As I have said in another volume, “The music should

never sound rigid, but should seem to come in a sinuous stream of

purling sound.” The average concert-goer would probably describe the

playing of an orchestra deficient in flexibility as “stiff,” and that

is a very expressive way of putting it. It will be remembered that

in “H. M. S. Pinafore” the only person who was invariably right was

_Dick Deadeye_, but everyone applauded _Buttercup’s_ assertion that he

was “a little triangular.” An orchestra must always be correct, but

it need not be triangular. Inflexibility is usually the result of bad

conducting.

A martinet, with phlegmatic temperament, can make an orchestra play

as inflexibly as a street piano. A conductor of excessively melting

temperament will often melt his orchestra so that its playing will be

as sweet, as flexible, and as limp as hot taffy.

And this brings us to the all-important question of light and shade.

The fundamental element of light and shade is the distribution of force

and speed. An orchestra is capable of a pianissimo, which is like the

softest whisper of a summer evening’s breeze, and of a fortissimo,

which is like the booming of a thunder-storm. There is an infinitesimal

scale of gradations between these two extremes, and these should all be

properly employed. Of course, their use is guided by the conductor, but

they form a part of the technics of orchestral playing, and hence must

be described here. All lovers of music know what effects are brought

about by skilful use of alterations of tempo--the accelerando and

ritardando--and by the combination of these with gradations of force.

In the application of these devices an orchestra should be adept. The

placing of the effects is, of course, indicated in the score, or, if

not, must be the result of the judgment and taste of the conductor; but

the manner of producing them is the work of the performers. It requires

frequent rehearsal to get these effects made with precision, unanimity,

and smoothness of tone, yet they should be so made. An orchestra should

sing like a great singer, and it should be able to produce all the

delicate shades of song as a human voice can.

But an orchestra has many voices, and the composer often takes

advantage of this fact. He frequently calls upon his instrument to

sing several melodies simultaneously, or, as in the case of a fugal

work, different parts of the same melody at the same time. This kind

of writing calls for a distinct delivery of the middle voices. Even

in compositions which are not polyphonic, there are often subsidiary

melodic fragments in parts other than those which are playing the

principal theme. These fragments should be heard; composers do not

write them by accident. They should blossom out spontaneously as

exuberant exfoliations of the harmonic garden. They should not be

thrust obstreperously in the faces of the auditors, but they should not

be permitted to escape notice. The middle voices are sadly neglected

at times. Some conductors seem to confine their whole study of a score

to hunting for the principal theme and bringing that out, while the

delicious bits of counterpoint, which the composer has been at no small

pains to devise, are left to take care of themselves. Such conductors

remind me of a professional musician who was engaged in a discussion of

Richard Wagner in the corridor of the Metropolitan Opera-House, while

inside the orchestra was playing the vorspiel to “Die Meistersinger.”

“It is a pity,” said this wise man, in a condescending manner; “but

Wagner knew absolutely nothing about counterpoint.”

And at that very instant the orchestra was singing five different

melodies at once; and, as Anton Seidl was the conductor, they were all

audible.

Light and shade, as we roughly call them--the German “nuancirung”

(nuancing) is far better--depend also on phrasing. In singing,

phrasing means the division of the melody into groups of notes, so

that breath can be taken. Now, phrasing is obviously quite as vital

to wind-instrument players as to singers, because the former, too,

must have intervals to take breath. Obviously, if the several players

stop to take breath, they should cease to sound their instruments at

the same instant, and begin again with equal precision. A similar

grouping of notes is made in the performance of bowed instruments

by the movements of the bow. All violin-players know that there is

a difference in the results produced by the up-stroke and those by

the down-stroke. Phrasing in the orchestra, then, is the technical

treatment of the natural groups of tones which form the component

parts of a melody in such a way that they shall come out clearly

and symmetrically and in a vocal style. Here again we come upon

the technical part of a conductor’s work. It is he who regulates

the phrasing. The distribution of up and down strokes of the bow

is in a general way left to the concert-master, the leader of the

first violins, but he is, of course, subject to the direction of

the conductor. Many composers of the present day mark the bowing

in particular passages, but most of them content themselves with

indicating such things as slurred notes and staccati, or special

effects, such as playing near the bridge, or with the point of the bow.

The legato of stringed instruments is indicated in a score by a curved

line drawn over or under the passages, thus:

[Music]

Detached notes are indicated by dots, while lightly detached ones, to

be played with a single stroke, are indicated by dots with a slur, or

legato mark, over them, thus:

[Music]

All these details of bowing and of breathing in the wind-instrument

choir should be carefully regulated. They are elementary parts of

the technic of orchestral performance, and they contribute to the

production of smoothness, elegance, and refinement in the playing of a

band, as well as to force, brilliancy, and expression. Furthermore, all

demands of the composer in regard to the use of particular instruments

or the uncommon treatment of instruments should be respected. If the

result is bad, it is the composer’s fault. But it is usually good.

When _Hans Sachs_, in “Die Meistersinger,” makes _David_ a journeyman

cobbler, he smacks the boy’s ear with his broad hand, and Wagner

imitates the ringing in the offended member by the whizzing note of

a stopped horn. To play that note unstopped would be to defeat the

composer’s intention. It would be equally wrong to neglect to put

mutes on where directed to do so. Sometimes composers call for very

curious performances, but their wishes should be respected as far as

possible. For instance, in his “Lelio, ou le retour à la vie,” Berlioz

has written a passage for clarinet “con sordino,” and has directed that

the instrument should be muted by being “wrapped in a bag of cloth or

leather.” His desire was to give the clarinet a veiled and distant

sound, and his wishes should be carried out. In another place Berlioz

calls for tympani drum-sticks with heads of sponge. Wagner calls for

tenor tubas in the funeral march of “Die Götterdämmerung,” and Mozart

calls for a mandolin to accompany _Don Giovanni’s_ “Deh vieni.” Such

requirements should always be fulfilled, and so should all directions

as to the manner of performance.

We are in the habit of thinking that what may be called the virtuoso

orchestra is a product of our own time, but perhaps we flatter

ourselves. It is very certain that the orchestra of the Paris

Conservatoire played with splendid precision and with much fire half

a century ago, and there are other orchestras in Europe which have

to live up to some pretty old traditions. It was only last September

(1898) that the Dresden Court Orchestra celebrated its three hundred

and fiftieth anniversary. To be sure, when it was established by the

Elector Maurice it was a singing choir, whose members learned to play

instruments in order to supply accompaniments; but it developed into an

orchestra, and as such it helped to produce Heinrich Schütz’s “Seven

Last Words of Christ,” and his “Daphne,” which was the first German

opera. The Esterhazy orchestra, under Haydn, was no mean band, and the

famous Mannheim orchestra, under Stamitz, revealed possibilities of

performance which did much toward forming Mozart’s symphonic style.

The Leipsic Gewandhaus orchestra dates back to 1743, when it numbered

sixteen players and gave its concerts in a private house. These

concerts were interrupted by the Seven Years’ War, but were resumed

in 1763 with an orchestra of thirty. The first concert in the new

Gewandhaus rooms took place on September 29, 1781. Since that time the

seasons have been regular. Mendelssohn was the conductor from 1835 to

1843, and Neils W. Gade from 1844 to 1848. The development of style and

technic in the performances of this orchestra had very considerable

influence on the advance of orchestral playing throughout Europe. Other

notable German organizations are the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

and the orchestra of the opera at Munich. The Vienna Philharmonic is

celebrated for its strings.

In France the progress of orchestral playing received its first

impetus from the labors of François Joseph Gossec (1733-1829), whose

extraordinarily long and active life enabled him to see not only the

blossom, but some of the early fruit of his efforts. He was the first

French composer of symphonies, and in 1770 founded the “Concert des

Amateurs.” He did much toward developing good orchestral playing in

Paris, and prepared the way for the famous François Antoine Habeneck

(1781-1849), who, in 1828, founded the “Société des Concerts du

Conservatoire.”

Orchestral playing has never reached a high plane in England, but the

London Philharmonic Society has an important history because of the

famous works written for it, among them symphonies and overtures by

Cherubini, Spohr’s second symphony, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, and

Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony. In America orchestral performances have

always been popular since the foundation of the New York Philharmonic

Society in 1842. The labors of such admirable conductors as Theodore

Eisfeld, Carl Bergmann, and, most of all, Theodore Thomas, did much to

develop a high degree of skill among orchestral performers and a wide

appreciation on the part of the public. The debt of the country to Mr.

Thomas is one that it will carry to the end of its musical development.

The foundation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, in 1880, by Colonel

Henry L. Higginson, of Boston, gave the United States its first concert

orchestra established on a permanent basis, and the organization has

come to be regarded as one of the leading orchestras of the world. The

Chicago Orchestra, directed by Theodore Thomas, is its only rival in

America.

[Illustration: _From a photograph by Falk._

THEODORE THOMAS.]

Nothing more excellently pictures the conditions under which an

orchestra comes to the perfection of its work than a few words in one

of Schumann’s comments on music in Leipsic: “Before we take leave of

the Gewandhaus concerts for half a year,” he says, “we must award a

crown of merit to the forty or fifty orchestral members. We have no

solo-players like Brod in Paris or Harper in London; but even these

cities can scarcely boast such fine, united playing. And this results

from the nature of circumstances. Our musicians here form a family;

they see each other and practise together daily; they are always the

same, so that they are able to play a Beethoven symphony without notes.

Add to these a concert-master who can conduct such scores from memory,

a director who knows them by, and reveres them at, heart, and the crown

is complete.”

PART III

How the Orchestra is Directed

XII

Development of the Conductor

It is not so easy to define the functions of the conductor of an

orchestra as it may seem to be, because at present there is a

general tendency to exaggerate one element of his labor, namely, the

interpretative. “Readings” are the order of the day, and we are invited

to consider Mr. Paur’s reading of Beethoven’s C minor symphony, Mr.

Nikisch’s interpretation of the same, and again Mr. Gericke’s, and

to compare them one with another, as we might compare Mr. Barnay’s

performance of _Hamlet_ with that of Wilson Barrett. The conductor’s

magnetism, his personality, his style, even the cut of his cuffs have

thrust themselves between the public and the immortal works of the

masters, until it seems as if there must come a reaction which will

drive us back to the ancient time-beater. Perhaps it will be advisable,

before considering conducting in the abstract, to trace briefly the

development of the conductor.

It is impossible to tell when the conductor made his appearance in

music. There seems to have been the widest diversity in the customs of

different places and different times. In modern music, which may fairly

date from the time when vocal and instrumental composition started

upon lines of independent development, namely, at the beginning of

the seventeenth century, the conductor was at first nothing more than

a leader. He was one of the performers whom the rest followed. His

function is preserved to-day by the leader of the college glee-club.

Yet long before the year 1600 there certainly were conductors who used

the baton. An ancient manuscript in a Parisian library contains an

illustration (which the reader will find reproduced in Emil Naumann’s

“History of Music”) showing Heinrich von Meissen, a minnesinger who

died in 1318, conducting a choir of singers and players. He is seated

on a raised platform and is using a long baton in his left hand and

the extended finger of his right. His attitude and facial expression

clearly express his intent to guide those below him, or correct someone

who is going astray. Two or three of the figures in the choir seem to

be repeating his beat.

What became of conductors of this kind between 1318 and 1600 I have

been unable to discover. The early operatic performances in Italy,

however, were conducted by the harpsichordist, who played the chords

sustaining the dry recitative and led the rest of the performers in the

orchestral passages. This method of conducting followed Italian opera

into Germany and France. Lully’s works were conducted in this manner,

and when young Pelham Humphreys, one of the gentlemen of the King’s

Chapel, returned from his studies in France, “a young monsieur,” as

Pepys notes, and made fun of the performances of his former companions

because they could not keep time, he must have shown them how his

master, Lully, conducted. At any rate, the conducting of operatic

performances at the harpsichord was common in the time of his pupil,

Purcell, and when Handel, who had been writing Italian operas for the

Germans, went to London, he, too, conducted his own works while sitting

at the harpsichord. Heinrich Schütz must certainly have learned this

method of conducting when he went down to Italy to get the score of

Peri’s “Daphne” for the delectation of the Dresden court, even if

he had not known it before. This would account for the introduction

into Germany of the Italian method of opera conducting, and it was

continued, of course, at Hamburg under Reinhard Keiser and afterward

under Handel. Sufficiently numerous pen-pictures of Handel have come

down to us, and we know that he conducted the performances of his

operas in Germany sitting at the harpsichord.

How did these harpsichordists conduct? Undoubtedly, sometimes with a

nod of the head, sometimes with a wave of the hand, and occasionally,

perhaps, with a most emphatic stamp of the foot. Not a little light is

thrown upon the various methods of conducting by the records of the

practices of the church musicians. It appears that even in the days of

Handel and Bach there were different ways of conducting church music.

Johann Bähr, concert-master at Weissenfels, says, in a book published

in Nuremberg in 1719, that “one man conducts with the foot, another

with the head, a third with the hand, some with both hands, some again

take a roll of paper, and others a stick.” It is perfectly clear,

from other remarks of Bähr, that these different methods were applied

to different kinds of performances. A Nuremberg engraving, published

certainly before 1725, shows a music conductor with a roll of music in

each hand directing the performance of a motet from a score. There is

an inscription in verse which shows very plainly that this was a real

conductor. “Silent myself, I cause the music I control,” is one of

the lines whose meaning is not doubtful. There are other pictures, of

about the same date, which show the church-music conductor standing in

the midst of a group of singers and players in front of the organ and

directing with a roll of music. In some cases the leader of the choir

used a violin, with which he could keep the singers on the pitch.

But it seems as if the quiet style of conducting at the harpsichord,

as practised in the opera-houses, must have commended itself to the

German church musicians as eminently suited to the sanctuary, for,

after 1730, the conductors of sacred music ceased to stand and beat

time continually. The custom of conducting all kinds of performances

from the harpsichord spread. Sometimes the time was indicated by

motions of the hand, at others by the sound of the instrument. Thus,

in Germany, undemonstrative harpsichord conducting became popular,

while in ever-theatrical France, where the eye must always be fed, the

practice of conducting with the baton became general. This led to the

scathing remark of Rousseau: “The Opera in Paris is the only theatre in

Europe where they beat the time without keeping it; in all other places

they keep time without beating it.” The influence of Hasse’s conducting

of the Dresden orchestra had much to do with the common adoption

of the harpsichord method in Germany. In the diagram of the Dresden

orchestra given in Chapter XV. the reader will see that there were two

harpsichords. The conductor sat at the one in the centre; the player

who performed the figured bass part sat at the other.

In his famous “Life of Bach,” Dr. Philip Spitta, to whose indefatigable

labors of research I am indebted for the above information as to

methods of church conducting, says: “When Bach entered on his duties he

had the harpsichord in the Thomaskirche [in Leipsic], which had become

useless, set in order forthwith, and got the Council to expend the sum

of six thalers a year upon keeping it regularly tuned, but it was out

of use again in the year 1733.” In regard to the use of the harpsichord

for conducting. Dr. Spitta quotes the words of Bach’s son, Philipp

Emmanuel, who wrote:

“The notes of the clavier [the German name for any instrument of the

piano family], which stands in the middle, surrounded by the musicians,

are clearly heard by all. For I myself know that even performances

on a large scale, where the performers are far apart, and in which

many very moderate musicians take part voluntarily, can be kept in

order simply by the tone of the harpsichord. If the first violinist

stands, as he should, near the harpsichord, it is difficult for any

confusion to ensue.... If, however, anybody begins to hurry or drag

the time, he can be corrected in the plainest possible way by means

of the clavier; while the other instruments have enough to do with

their own parts because of the number of passages and syncopations;

and especially the parts which are in tempo rubato by this means get

the necessary emphatic up-beat of the bar marked for them. Lastly, by

this method--since the musicians are not hindered by the noise of the

clavier from perceiving the slightest nuances of time--the pace can be

slightly lessened, as is often necessary; and the musicians who stand

behind or near the clavier have the beat of the bar given out in the

most evident, and consequently the most emphatic, way before their eyes

by both hands at once.”

These words are singularly enlightening as to the exact methods and

advantages of harpsichord conducting, and they go far toward explaining

the reasons why this method survived as long as it did. It continued

to be used, as we shall presently see, long after the time-beater had

become a fixed institution and even in conjunction with his work.

Undoubtedly, this was because the older orchestral players had become

so thoroughly schooled to follow the harpsichordist that they could

not be induced to give their whole attention to the time-beater and

the counting of their own rests. Gradually, however, as the wind

choir of the modern orchestra increased in power, the harpsichord was

unable to make itself heard, and it had to give way to a method of

conducting which appealed wholly to the eye. It was doubtless owing

to the continued existence of old musicians trained in the early

school that for a time the harpsichord and the baton were employed

simultaneously. It is not at all unlikely that in some instances a

distinguished composer, whose work was undergoing the ordeal of a first

hearing, was invited to sit at the harpsichord, where he pretended

much and did little, while his presence added to the interest of the

public, and someone else really conducted the performance with a baton.

The first violin, too, played an important part in the conducting

of an orchestra, so much so that to this day he is known either as

the concert-master or the leader, although his functions have wholly

changed.

At one time he was the only conductor that some orchestras had. Part

of the time he played, leading the others by the motions of his bow

and by raising and lowering the neck of his violin on the beats.

Again he would cease to play and conduct with the violin bow. He was

known as the leader of the orchestra, and his descendant exists in

the contemporaneous theatre, where the first violinist of the little

orchestra of eight or ten pieces is the leader. Some concert-goers will

doubtless recall the fact that both Johann and Eduard Strauss conducted

their dance-music in this manner.

In Haydn’s day the performance of symphonic music enlisted both

harpsichordist and time-beater, and at the famous London concerts

for which the genial master composed some of his best symphonies, he

himself sat at the harpsichord, while Salomon, the manager of the

entertainments, beat time. That a similar method should have been

employed in the performance of vocal works even in the present century

is not surprising, but we must bear in mind that it was applied to

compositions whose scores contain no clavier parts. At Vienna, in 1808,

Haydn’s “Creation” was performed with Kreuzer at the harpsichord and

Salieri conducting. In 1815 Beethoven’s “Mount of Olives” was given in

the same city with Umlauf at the piano and Wranitzky conducting. At the

Berlin Singakadamie Zelter used to beat time while one of his pupils

was at the harpsichord. The practice of conducting from the piano,

even without the time-beater, clung tenaciously to life, for it is

on record that Mendelssohn, at a concert of the London Philharmonic

Society in the Argyll Rooms, on May 25, 1829, conducted his symphony

in C minor from a piano. It may be as well to note here that the

eminent composer, Ludwig Spohr, in 1820 introduced the modern manner of

conducting in England. He stood at a desk at the front of the stage and

directed with a baton. He describes in his autobiography the general

opposition of the Philharmonic musicians which he had to overcome in

order to begin this practice. “Henceforth,” he says, “no one was ever

again seen seated at the piano during the performance of symphonies and

overtures.” He was not informed of Mendelssohn’s piano conducting.

We have now come to the period when the mere time-beater began to

give way to the interpreting conductor, the director who invites you

to consider his especial “reading” of this or that work and be wise.

Before we leave the time-beater, however, let me remind the reader

that his function is by no means to be despised, and in the case of

some suave and gentle classical works it would be well if he presided

over the performances of some of our present orchestras. Berlioz has

said: “The talent of the beater of time, without demanding very high

musical attainments, is nevertheless sufficiently difficult to obtain;

and very few persons really possess it. The signs that a conductor

should make--although generally simple--nevertheless become complicated

under certain circumstances by the division and even the subdivision

of the time of the bar.” Berlioz has given us, in the concluding

chapter of his admirable work on orchestration, an essay on the art

of the time-beater, which is well worth reading. It is sufficient to

say here that the old-fashioned time-beater’s work was complete when

he indicated the correct tempo, and plainly marked the beginning and

necessary subdivisions of each bar.

When the composer conducted his own works, as was so often the

case in the earlier days of symphonic music, there was no need of

an interpretative conductor. But when the composer had long passed

from the land of the living and the traditions of his readings had

become obscured, or when his works were to be introduced in a foreign

country--as in the case of Beethoven’s symphonies in France--the

interpretative conductor became a necessity. Furthermore, when the art

of conducting began to be recognized as a specialty, it was conceded

that composers were generally poor conductors of their own works, and

the orchestral director became a distinct species. Hector Berlioz, for

example, could not play any instrument save the guitar, and Richard

Wagner was only a very poor pianist; yet both were admirable conductors.

The interpreting conductor came into existence in the early part of

the present century. It cannot be said that any one man was the first

representative of the species, but rather that it was one of the

first-fruits of the romantic movement, that healthy renaissance of

musical emotion. Both German capellmeisters and French directors had

occupied themselves wholly with the regulation of the technics of the

orchestra, and if the tempo was about right and the instruments kept

well together and gave the broader effects of light and shade, they

were satisfied. But two or three progressive conductors insisted upon

further refinement of orchestral performance.

Johann Karl Stamitz (1719-61), director of the Mannheim orchestra,

and François Joseph Gossec (1733-1829), founder of the Concert des

Amateurs in Paris, were the two conductors who carried orchestral

technics up to the point at which genuine interpretative work became

possible by reason of the refinement of the means of expression. It was

in studying the means of orchestral expression that these conductors

gradually approached the questions of interpretation. As they polished

the phrasing of their orchestras, they began to inquire whether they

were applying their nuances in the proper places, and so they advanced

toward that point at which the interpreting conductor sits down before

a score to study out a complete plan of performance deduced from his

conception of the intent of the composer. Gossec founded the Concert

des Amateurs in 1770 and was himself the conductor. Symphonies by

Toeschi, Vanhall, Stamitz and other composers were produced, and the

conductor had at any rate to decide the tempo and place the broader

dynamic effects according to his own conception, for these matters were

not carefully marked in the scores as they are now.

Before Gossec’s death the modern interpretative conductor had made his

appearance. Spohr, Mendelssohn, and Weber were early representatives of

the species. All three of them occupied at different times posts of the

highest importance in the department of conducting. Spohr at Cassel,

Mendelssohn in the Leipsic Gewandhaus, and Weber at the Dresden Opera

were, without doubt, interpreting conductors. They advanced without

hesitation beyond the mere study of orchestral technics to the study

of the correct style and feeling in the performance. Spohr was an

enthusiast on the subject of Mozart’s music, and he conducted Mozart’s

symphonies according to his own ideas. Weber revived old German

operas and treated them as he believed their composers would have

treated them. Mendelssohn was the resurrector of Bach’s Passion music,

which had lain buried for a century, and he was not silent as to his

conception of its proper performance.

The most conspicuous figure among the early interpreting conductors

was unquestionably François Antoine Habeneck (1781-1849), the founder

of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire. Habeneck was compelled

to be an interpreter. He was a conductor pure and simple. He had no

gospel of his own to preach, but he aimed at making the symphonies

of Beethoven known in France, and he was thus forced to become an

interpreter of the mighty Ludwig’s thought. He not only brought the

Conservatoire orchestra to a remarkably high point of technical

ability, but he conducted Beethoven’s music with a force, a sentiment,

a nobility of style that carried conviction with it and compelled Paris

to acknowledge the genius of the German master. Berlioz, himself a

skilful conductor, has rendered homage to Habeneck’s powers, and there

is abundant testimony that he was the Richter or the Gericke (or whom

you please) of his day.

The list of conductors of the Leipsic Gewandhaus concerts shows

conclusively that, so far as they were concerned, interpretative

conducting began with Mendelssohn. His predecessors were merely good

leaders; his successors have all been men of talent, such as Ferdinand

Hiller, Julius Rietz, Neils Gade, and Karl Reinecke. In France it is

easy to follow the succession of great interpretative conductors.

Habeneck conducted the concerts of the Conservatoire until 1848. In

1851 Jules Etienne Pasdeloup founded and conducted the first concert of

the Société des Jeunes Artistes du Conservatoire. In 1873 Colonne began

his career as a conductor, and in the same year Lamoureux made himself

a place. These men are admirable representatives of the genus conductor

as known in our day.

There is no doubt that the art of interpretative conducting received a

strong impulse in Germany from the work of Richard Wagner, who entered

upon his career as a director at the Magdeburg Theatre in the autumn

of 1834. It was not so much by his individual labors as a conductor

that Wagner aided in the development of the interpreting art as by

his fiery castigation of the mechanical and slovenly work of careless

capellmeisters, and his luminous words upon the right method of

directing orchestral performances. In the spread of his doctrines he

was mightily aided, first by the admirable conducting of Liszt, and

afterward by that of Hans von Bülow, without doubt, one of the best

conductors who ever set foot on the platform. His readings of Wagner

were, of course, authoritative, and his interpretations of Beethoven

carried with them so much conviction that they were regarded as equally

so. Dr. Hans Richter, who came into prominence in 1875, carried forward

the work, and Germany has since produced a number of the most eminent

interpreting conductors. Indeed, there can be no question that the

best representatives of the class have been and still are German or

Austrian, including Hungarian in the latter.

In the United States all the eminent conductors have been men whose

early musical nourishment was obtained in Germany. The conductors of

the Philharmonic Society of New York began with Theodore Eisfeld, who

came into notice in the season of 1849-50. Subsequently he shared

his labors with Carl Bergmann, who became the sole conductor in 1865

and remained in office till the close of the season of 1875-76. Mr.

Bergmann was an interpreting conductor and a determined advocate of

certain advances in music. Once, when he had been giving his hearers a

good deal of Wagner, someone expostulated with him, saying, “But, Mr.

Bergmann, the people don’t like Wagner.” “Don’t like Vagner!” answered

Bergmann; “den dey must hear him till dey do!”

[Illustration: _Copyright by Elliott & Fry._

HANS RICHTER.]

Mr. Bergmann’s successor was Leopold Damrosch, who conducted the

Philharmonic only a year, but left an imperishable record as the

founder of the Oratorio Society and the regenerator of German opera

in New York. Of the labors of Theodore Thomas and Anton Seidl it is

unnecessary to speak. As interpreting conductors they have not been

excelled in America in their especial fields. In Boston, Carl Zerrahn,

Georg Henschel, Wilhelm Gericke, Arthur Nikisch, and Emil Paur did

notable work as interpreting conductors. The tendency in our day,

indeed, has been to do a little too much interpreting, and as a result

the conductor has too frequently distracted attention from the music

to himself. The public, prone to run after a virtuoso of any kind, has

readily bowed the knee at the shrine of the baton-wielder, and we have

beheld the curious spectacle of people going not to hear Beethoven or

Wagner, but Nikisch or Seidl.

XIII

Functions of the Conductor

Perhaps nothing connected with the orchestra is more completely

misunderstood by amateurs than the functions of the conductor. I

remember that in the days of a certain distinguished orchestral

director there were two of his ardent admirers who always occupied

seats in the front row, just a little to his left. There they sat, with

rapt expressions on their faces, gazing at the conductor. They never

took their eyes off him, and I am morally certain they had finally come

to think that the whole of every composition emanated from the swaying

end of his baton. They overrated the importance of the conductor, but

not so much more than the average concert-goer. The first and radical

blunder made by the typical music-lover is in supposing that the work

of a conductor is done at the performance. In some mysterious way this

man with a stick in his hand is supposed to hypnotize, magnetize, or

just vulgarly scare the musicians into playing certain music according

to impulses which have just developed in his breast. I have heard

people coming out of a concert-room say such things as these:

“I thought Mr. Seidl was very cold to-night, didn’t you?”

“Yes, he was, indeed. That’s why I liked Nikisch so much; he always

kept the orchestra on fire.”

There is a substratum of truth in all this kind of talk. A conductor

of cold temperament will not give highly colored readings, nor will

he excite enthusiasm in his orchestra. A conductor of poetic feeling

will conduct poetically and he will make his orchestra play so. But

neither of them accomplishes his result suddenly and spontaneously

at the performance. All that a conductor does at a performance is to

remind his players of what he told them at rehearsal. It could not be

otherwise, for the beat of the baton and the utterance of the sound by

the instruments is almost simultaneous.

To remind the musicians of what he has already instructed them to

do, the conductor employs certain pantomimic motions and facial

expressions, some of which have been so generally used that they are

conventional, while others are, of course, peculiar to the individual.

Everyone knows, for example, that Hans von Bülow was fond of conducting

with an eye to effect upon the audience, and that some of his pantomime

was comic. In a diminuendo I have seen him stoop lower and lower till

he was almost hidden behind the music-stand, and at a sudden forte he

would spring up again like a jack-in-the-box. No one can ever forget

those spasmodic, but tremendously eloquent, jerks of the chin with its

long beard which Dr. Leopold Damrosch used to aim at his men when there

was a staccato chord to be played. Who does not recall the eloquent

hands of Nikisch and the equally eloquent cuffs of Seidl? Thomas,

with his occasional sidewise cant of the head, and Richter, with the

apparently increasing confusion of his hair and his beard, also come

back to my memories of pictorial peculiarities of conductors.