An orchestra is an aggregation of many instruments which, under the baton of an able conductor, should play as one, so far as precision and expression are concerned. Separately, the instruments are like the paints on a palette, and the result of the composer’s effort, like that of the painter’s, depends upon what he has to express and his knowledge of how to use his materials in trying to express it.

The orchestra has developed into several distinct groups, which are capable of playing independently, or in union with each other, and within these groups themselves there are various subdivisions. It is the purpose of every modern composer who amounts to anything, to get as many different quartets as possible out of his orchestra. By this is meant a grouping of instruments in such a way that as many groups as possible can play in independent harmony.

It is through this system of orchestral groups that Wagner has been able to enrich orchestral tone coloring, and to say everything he wishes to say in exactly the way it should be said. We cannot, for example, imagine that the Love Motive in “Die WalkÜre” could be made to sound more beautiful on its first entrance in the score than it does. Nor could it. In that scene 180 it is exactly suited to a solo violoncello, and to a solo violoncello Wagner gives it. In order, however, to produce a perfectly homogenous effect, in order that the violoncello quality of tone shall pervade not only the melody, but also the supporting harmony, he supports the melody with eight violoncellos, adding two double basses to give more sonorousness to the deepest note in the harmony. In other words he has made for the moment a complete orchestra out of nine violoncellos and two double basses, and produced a wondrously rich and thrilling effect—because, having a 181 beautiful melody to score, he knew just the instruments for which to score it. This is an admirable example of what technique accomplishes in the hands of a genius. Another composer might have used an orchestra of a hundred instruments and not have produced the exquisite thrill that Wagner with his magical orchestral touch conjures out of this group of violoncellos, a group within a group, an orchestra of violoncellos within the string band.

The woodwind instruments are capable of several similar subdivisions. Flutes, oboes and bassoons, for example, may form a group capable of producing independent harmony, so can the clarinets, and the same is the case with the brass instruments. One of Wagner’s most beautiful leading motives, the Walhalla Motive in the “Ring of the Nibelung,” is sounded on four trombones. In brief, then, the modern composer strives to constitute his orchestra in such a way that he secures as many independent groups, and as many little orchestras, as possible, not, however, for the purpose of using them independently all the time, but merely in order to do so occasionally for special effects or to combine them whenever he sees fit in order to enrich his tone coloring or weave his polyphony.

The grand divisions of the orchestra are the strings—violins, violas, violoncellos and double basses; the woodwind, consisting, broadly speaking, of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; the brass—horns, trumpets and trombones; and the instruments of percussion, or the “battery”—drums, triangles, cymbals and instruments of that kind.

The Prima Donna of the Orchestra.

The leading instrument of the string group, and in fact the leading instrument of the orchestra, is the violin. The first violins are the prima donnas of the orchestra, and one might say that it is almost impossible to have too many of them. The first and second violins should form about one-third of an orchestra, and better still it would be for the number to exceed that proportion. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, which has about eighty-one players, has thirty violins. Theodore Thomas’s New York Festival Orchestra in 1882, consisting of three hundred and fourteen instruments, had one hundred violins.

Great is the capacity of the violin. Its notes may be crisp, sharp, decisive, brilliant, or long-drawn-out and full of emotion. It has greater precision of attack than any other instrument in the orchestra. And right here it is interesting to note that while the multiplication of instruments gives greater sonority, it also gives much finer effects in soft passages. The pianissimo of one hundred violins is a very much finer pianissimo and at the same time infinitely richer and further carrying than the pianissimo of a solo violin. It is the very acme of a musical stage whisper.

In this very first and most important group of the orchestra we can find examples of utilizing subdivisions of groups. Although the violin cannot be played lower than its G string, which sounds the G below the treble clef, the violin group nevertheless has been employed entirely by itself, and even subdivided within itself. The most exquisite example of this, one cited in every 183 work on the orchestra worth reading, is the “Lohengrin” prelude. To this the violins are divided into four groups and on the highest register, with an effect that is most ethereal.

Modern orchestral virtuosity may be gauged by the statement that while Beethoven but once dared to score for his violins above the high F, Richard Strauss in the most casual manner carries them an octave higher.

A little contrivance of wood or metal, with teeth, can be pressed down over the strings of the violin so as to deaden its vibrations. This is called the sordine, or mute. A famous example of the use of the violins con sordini is the Queen Mab Scherzo in Berlioz’s “Romeo et Juliette Symphonie.” Another well-known use of the same effect is in Asa’s Death, in Grieg’s “Peer Gynt” Suite. Nothing can be more exquisite than the entrance of the muted violins after a long silence, in the last act of “Tristan und Isolde,” just before Isolde intones the Love Death.

An unusual effect is produced by using the back of the bow instead of the horsehair. Liszt uses it in his symphonic poem, “Mazeppa,” for imitating the snorting of the horse; Wagner in “Siegfried,” for accompanying the mocking laugh of Mime; and Richard Strauss in “Feuersnot,” to produce the effect of crackling flames. But, as Strauss remarks in his revision of Berlioz’s work on instrumentation, it is effective only with a large orchestra. The plucking of the strings with the fingers—pizzicato—is a familiar device. Tschaikowski employed it almost throughout an entire movement, the “Pizzicato Ostinato” in his Fourth Symphony.

Viola, Violoncello and Double Bass.

The viola is a deeper violin, with a very beautiful and expressive tone. MÉhul, the French composer, scored his one-act opera, “Uthal,” without violins, employing the viola as the highest string instrument in his score. This, however, was not a success, the brilliant 185 tone of the violin being missed more and more as the performance of the work progressed, until GrÉtry is said to have risen in his seat and exclaimed: “A thousand francs for an E string!”

Meyerbeer, who was among the first to appreciate the beauty of the viola as a solo instrument, used a single viola for the accompaniment to Raoul’s romance, “Plus blanche que la blanche hermine,” in the first act of “Les Huguenots.” Strictly speaking, he wrote it for the viola d’amour, which is somewhat larger than the ordinary viola; but it almost always is played on the latter. Berlioz made exquisite use of it in his “Harold Symphony,” practically making a dramatis persona of it, for in the score a solo viola represents the melancholy wanderer; and in his “Don Quixote,” Richard Strauss assigns to the instrument an equally important rÔle.

The violoncello is one of the most tenderly expressive of all the instruments in the orchestra. Beethoven employs it for the theme of the slow movement in his Fifth Symphony, and although the viola joins with the violoncello in playing this melody, the passage owes its beauty chiefly to the latter. One of the most exquisite melodies in all symphonic music is the theme which Schubert has given to the violoncellos in the first movement of his “Unfinished Symphony.” They also are used with wonderfully expressive effect in the “Tristan Vorspiel.” Rossini gives a melodious passage, in the introduction to the overture to “William Tell,” to five violoncellos. But the most striking employment of the violoncellos as an independent group is in the Love Motive in the first act of “Die WalkÜre.”

Double basses first were used to simply double the violoncello part in the harmony. But through Beethoven’s employment of them in the Fifth and Ninth Symphonies, in the former for a remarkably effective passage in the Scherzo and in the latter for a highly dramatic recitative, their importance as independent instruments in the orchestra was established. Verdi has made very effective use of them in the scene in “Otello” as the Moor approaches Desdemona’s bed. In the introduction to “Rheingold,” Wagner has half his double basses tuned down to E flat, which is half a note deeper than the usual range of the instrument, and in the second act of “Tristan und Isolde” two basses are obliged to tune their E string down to C sharp.

Dividing the String Band.

I have pointed out several examples in which the groups of instruments in the string band are divided within themselves, as in the prelude to “Lohengrin” and in the first act of “Die WalkÜre.” The entire string band can be divided and subdivided with telling effect, when done by a master. When in the second act of “Tristan” BrangÄne warns the lovers from her position on the watch-tower, the accompaniment stirs the soul to its depth, because it gives the listener such a weird thrill of impending danger that he almost longs to inform the lovers of their peril. In this passage Wagner divides the string band into no less than fifteen parts. In the thunder-storm in “Rheingold” the strings are divided into twenty-one parts. Richard Strauss points out how in the introduction to “Die 187 WalkÜre” much of the stormy effect is produced by strings only—sixteen second violins, twelve violas, twelve violoncellos and four double basses—a storm for strings where another composer would have unleashed a whole orchestra, including cymbals and bass drum, and crashed and thrashed about without producing a tithe of Wagner’s effect! He also cites the tremolo at the beginning of the second act of “Tristan” as a wonderful example of tone painting which produces the effect of whispering foliage and conveys to the audience a sense of mystery and danger.

Theodore Thomas always was insistent that the various divisions of a string band should bow exactly alike. It is said that he once stopped an orchestra because he had detected something wrong with the tonal effect, and, after watching the players, had discovered that one violoncellist among sixteen was bowing differently from the others. Richard Strauss, on the other hand, never insists on the same bowing throughout each division of strings. He thinks it robs the melody of intensity and beauty if each individual is not allowed to play according to his own peculiar temperament.

A Passage in “Die WalkÜre.”

In the Magic Fire Scene in the finale of “Die WalkÜre,” Wagner wrote violin passages which not even the greatest soloist can play cleanly, yet which, when played by all the violins, simulate in sound the aspect of licking, circling flames. Indeed, the effects that Wagner understood how to draw from the orchestral 188 instruments are little short of marvellous. In the “Lohengrin” prelude the tone quality of the violins is absolutely angelic in purity; while in the third act of “Siegfried,” the upswinging violin passages as the young hero reaches the height where BrÜnnhilde slumbers, depict the action with a thrilling realism.

Besides the regular string band, Wagner made frequent use of the harp. It is related that at the Munich performance of “Rheingold,” when the harpist Trombo protested to him that some of the passages were unplayable, the composer replied: “You don’t expect me to play the harp, too, do you? You perceive the general effect I am aiming at; produce that and I shall be satisfied.” Liszt, in his “Dante Symphony,” uses the glissando of the harp as a symbol for the rising shades of Francesco da Rimini and her lover, and a very beautiful use of harmonics on the harp with their faint tinkle is to be found in the Waltz of the Sylphs in Berlioz’s “Damnation de Faust.”

The Woodwind.

Flutes, oboes and clarinets form the woodwind. One of the best known passages for flute is in the third “Leonora Overture” of Beethoven, where it is employed with conspicuous grace. Probably, however, more fun has been made of the flute than of any other orchestral instrument, and a standard musical joke runs as follows:

“Are you musical?”

“No, but I have a brother who plays the flute.”

It has also been insinuated that in Donizetti’s 189 “Lucia” the heroine goes mad, not because she has been separated from Edgardo, but because a flute obbligato accompanies her principal aria. The piccolo is a high flute used for shrill effects.

The instruments of both the oboe and clarinet families are reed instruments, with this difference, however: the instruments of the oboe family have two vibrating reeds in the mouthpieces; those of the clarinet family, only one. The oboe family consists of the oboe proper, the English horn which is an alt oboe, and the bassoon which is the bass of this group of instruments. In Italian the bassoon is called a fagotto, a name derived from its supposed resemblance to a bundle of fagots. “Candor, artless grace, tender joy, or the grief of a fragile soul, are found in the oboe’s accents,” says Berlioz of this instrument, and those who remember the exquisite oboe melody, with which the slow movement of Schubert’s C major symphony opens, will agree with the French composer. Richard Strauss, in his “Sinfonia Domestica,” employs the almost obsolete oboes d’amore to represent an “innocent, dreamy, playful child.”

The English Horn in “Tristan.”

The most famous use of the English horn is found in the third act of “Tristan,” where it plays the “sad lay” while Tristan awaits news of the ship which is bearing Isolde toward him, and changes to a joyous strain when the ship is sighted. The bassoon and contrabassoon, besides their value as the bass of the oboe family, have certain humorous qualities, which are admirably 190 brought out in Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and in the march of the clownish artisans in Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music. In opera, Meyerbeer made the bassoon famous by his scoring of the dance of the Spectre Nuns in “Robert le Diable” for it, and he also used it for the accompaniment to the female chorus in the second act of “Les Huguenots.” The theme of the romanza, “Una fortiva lagrima,” in Donizetti’s “L’Elisir d’Amore,” which Caruso sings so beautifully, is introduced by the bassoon, and with charming effect.

The clarinets have a large compass. Usually three kinds of clarinets (in A, B flat and C because they are transposing instruments) are employed in the orchestra, besides the bass clarinet. The possibilities of the clarinet group have been enormously developed by Wagner. It is necessary only to recall the scene of Elsa’s bridal procession to the cathedral in the second act of “Lohengrin”; Elisabeth’s sad exit after her prayer in the third act of “TannhÄuser,” in which the melody is played by the bass clarinet, while the accompaniment is given to three flutes and eight other clarinets; the change of scene in the first act of “GÖtterdÄmmerung,” when clarinets give forth the BrÜnnhilde Motive; and passages in the second act of “Die Meistersinger,” in the scene at nightfall; while for a generally skillful use of the woodwind the introduction to the third act of “Lohengrin” is a shining example.

Brass Instruments.

People usually associate the brass instruments with noise. But as a matter of fact, wonderfully rich and soft tone effects can be produced on the brass by a composer who knows how to score for it. Just as the pianissimo of many violins is a finer pianissimo than that of a solo violin, so a much more exquisitely soft effect can be produced on a large brass group than on a few brass instruments or a single one. When modern composers increase the number of instruments in the brass group, it is not for the sake of noise, but for richer effects.

The trumpet is the soprano of the brass family. The fanfare in “Fidelio” when at the critical moment aid approaches; the Siegfried Motive and the Sword Motive, in the “Ring of the Nibelung,” need only be cited to prove the effectiveness of the instrument in its proper place; and Richard Strauss instances the demoniacal and fateful effect of the deep trumpet tones in the introduction to the first act of Bizet’s “Carmen.”

Although the notes of the trombone are produced by a slide, this instrument belongs to the trumpet family. For this reason, in the “Ring of the Nibelung,” Wagner, in addition to the usual three tenor trombones, reintroduced the almost obsolete bass trombone. He wanted a trombone group complete in itself, and thus to be able to utilize the peculiar tone color of the instrument; as witness in the Walhalla Motive, where it is scored for the three tenor trombones and bass trombone, resulting in a wonderfully rich and velvety quality of tone. Excepting Wagner and Richard Strauss, 192 there probably is not a composer who would not have used the bass tuba here instead of taking the trouble to revive the bass trombone. But Wagner wanted an unusually rich tone which should be solemn without a trace of sombreness, and his keen instrumental color sense informed him that he could secure it with the bass trombone, which, as it belongs to the trumpet family, has a touch of trumpet brilliancy, whereas the tone of the bass tuba is darker.

Mozart employed the trombone with fine effect in Sarastro’s solo in the “Magic Flute”; Schubert showed his genius for instrumentation by the manner in which he used them in the introduction to his C major symphony, as well as in the first movement of that symphony, in which a theme is given out by three trombones in unison; and another familiar example of good scoring for trombones is in the introduction to the third act of “Lohengrin.” In the Death Prophecy scene in the second act of “Die WalkÜre,” a trumpet melody is supported by the four trombones, another instance of Wagner’s sense of homogeneity in sound, since trumpets and trombones belong to the same family. In fact, throughout the “Ring,” as Strauss points out, Wagner wrote for his trombones in four parts, adding the bass trombone in order to differentiate wholly between 193 it and the tuba, which latter he used with the horns, with which it is properly grouped.

Wagner has a tremendous tuba recitative in a “Faust Overture,” and in the Funeral March in the “GÖtterdÄmmerung” he introduces tenor tubas in order, again, to differentiate between the tone color of tubas and trombones and not to be obliged to employ trombones in this particular scene, the general tone color of the tuba being far more sombre than that of the trombone.

Richard Strauss’s Tribute to the Horn.

To mention tubas and trombones before the horns is very much like putting the cart before the horse, but I have reserved the horns for the last of the brass on account of the great tribute which Richard Strauss has paid them. In the early orchestras one rarely found more than two horns. Beethoven used four in the Ninth Symphony, and now it is not at all unusual to find eight.

“Of all instruments,” says Richard Strauss, “the horn is perhaps the one that best can be joined with other groups. To substantiate this in all its numerous phases, I should be obliged to quote the entire ‘Meistersinger’ score. For I do not think I exaggerate when I maintain that the greatly developed technique of the valve horn has made it possible that a score which, with the addition of a third trumpet, a harp and a tuba, employs the same instruments as Beethoven used in his Fifth Symphony, has become with every bar something entirely different, something wholly new and unheard of.

“Surely the two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets and two bassoons of Mozart have been exhausted by Wagner in every direction of their technical possibilities and plastically combined with an almost weird perception of all their tone secrets; the string quintet, through the most refined divisions into parts, and with added brilliance through the employment of the harp, produces innumerable new tone effects, and by superb polyphony is brought to a height and warmth of emotional expression such as never before was dreamed of; trumpet and trombones are made to express every phase of solemn or humorous characterization—but the main thing is the tireless participation of the horn, now for the melody, now for filling out, now as bass. The ‘Meistersinger’ score is the horn’s hymn of praise. Through the introduction and perfection of the valve horn the greatest improvement in the technique of scoring, since Berlioz’s day, has been made possible.

“To illustrate exhaustively this Protean character of the horn, I should like (again!) to go through the scores of the great magician, bar by bar, beginning with ‘Rheingold.’

“Whether it rings through the primeval German forest with the sunny exuberance of Siegfried’s youthful heart and joy of living; whether in Liszt’s ‘Mazeppa’ it dies out in the last hoarse gasp of the Cossack prince nigh unto death in the vast desert of the steppes; whether it conjures the childlike longing of Siegfried for the mother he never has known; whether it hovers over the gently undulating sea which is to bring Isolde’s gladdening form to the dying Tristan, or nods Hans Sachs’ thanks to the faithful ’Prentice; whether in 195 Erik’s dream it causes in a few hollow accents the North Sea to break on the lonely coast; bestows upon the apples of Freia the gift of eternal youth; pokes fun at the curtain-heroes (‘Meistersinger,’ Act III); plies the cudgels on Beckmesser with the jealous David and his comrades, and is the real instigator of the riot; or sings in veiled notes of the wounds of Tristan—always the horn, in its place and to be relied on, responds, unique in its manifold meanings and its brilliant significance.”

Famous horn passages in the works of other composers are in the trio of the Scherzo in the “Eroica Symphony”; in the second movement of Schubert’s C major symphony, the passage of which Schumann said that the notes of the horns just before the return of the principal subject were like the voice of an angel; in the opening of Weber’s “FreischÜtz” overture; in the introduction to Michaela’s romance in “Carmen”; and in the opening theme of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky’s Fifth Symphony, which is the perfection of a melodic phrase for solo horn.

Instruments of Percussion.

In the “battery” the instruments of prime importance are the tympani. Beethoven gave the cue to what could be accomplished with these in the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony and also in the octave thumps in the scherzo of the Ninth Symphony, while for a weirdly sombre effect there is nothing equal to the faint roll of the tympani at the beginning and end of the Funeral March in “GÖtterdÄmmerung.” Cymbals are 196 used in several ways. Besides the ordinary clash, Wagner has produced a sound somewhat like that of a gong, by the sharp stroke of a drum-stick on one cymbal, and also a roll by using a pair of drum-sticks on one cymbal.

Among composers since Beethoven, Weber, Liszt, Saint-SaËns, Dvorak, Tschaikowsky, and, of course, Richard Strauss—it hardly is necessary to mention either Berlioz or Wagner again—have shown brilliant technique in orchestration. On the other hand, Schumann and Brahms do not appear to have understood or to have taken the trouble to understand the individual characteristics of orchestral instruments, and, as a result, their works for orchestra are not as effective as they should be. Their orchestration has been called “muddy.”

It is Richard Strauss’s opinion that the next advancement in orchestration will be brought about by adding largely to certain groups of instruments which now have only comparatively few representatives in the orchestra. He instances that at the Brussels Conservatory one of the professors had Mozart’s G minor symphony performed for him on twenty-two clarinets, of which four were basset horns (alto clarinets), two brass clarinets, and one contra-bass clarinet; and he suggests that it will be along such lines that the orchestra of the future will be enlarged. With an orchestra with all the family groups of instruments complete in the manner suggested by Strauss, and used by a musical genius, a genius who combines with melodic invention virtuosity of instrumentation, marvellous results are yet to be achieved.