How to Appreciate Music Part 9

Henderson's "The Orchestra and Orchestral Music," a well conceived and logically developed book, in which the full story of the orchestra and its growth is clearly and interestingly told.

Beethoven not only understood to a greater degree than his predecessors the peculiar characteristics of orchestral instruments, he also compelled orchestral players to acquire a better technique by giving them more difficult music to execute. In point of greater difficulty in performance, a Beethoven symphony holds about the same relation to the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn as the Beethoven pianoforte sonatas do to the sonatas of those composers.

Beethoven and Wagner.

Just as Beethoven added only a few instruments to the orchestra of his predecessors, but showed greater skill in handling those instruments, so the modern musician--a Wagner or a Richard Strauss--achieves his striking instrumental effects by a still greater knowledge of instrumental resources. The Beethoven orchestra practically is the orchestra of to-day. Few, very few, instruments have been added.

Modern composers steadily have asked for more and more instruments in each group; but that is quite a different thing from adding new instruments. They have required more instruments of the same kind, but have asked for very few instruments of new kinds. Let me ill.u.s.trate this by two modern examples.

Firm, compact and eloquent as is Beethoven's orchestra in the Fifth Symphony, it cannot for a moment be compared in richness, sonority, tone color, searching power of expression and unflagging interest, with Wagner's orchestra in "Die Meistersinger." Yet Wagner has added only one trumpet, a harp and a tuba to the very orchestra which Beethoven employed when he scored for the Fifth Symphony; while for his "Symphonie Pathetique," one of the finest of modern orchestral works, Tschaikowsky adds only a ba.s.s tuba to the orchestra used by Beethoven. The simple fact is that modern composers have studied every possible phase of tone color and expression of which each instrument is capable. Furthermore, by skillfully dividing the orchestra into groups and using these groups like separate orchestras, yet uniting them into one great orchestra, they produce wonderfully rich contrapuntal effects, and thus make the modern orchestra sound, not seventy-five years, but five hundred years more advanced than that of Beethoven, however great we gladly acknowledge Beethoven to have been.

Berlioz, an Orchestral Juggler.

Following Beethoven, the next great development in the handling of orchestral resources is due to Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), and it is curious here how nearly one musical epoch overlaps another. Scarlatti was composing sonatas, and thus voicing the beginning of the cla.s.sical era, while Bach was bringing the contrapuntal period to a close. It was only five years after the completion of the Ninth Symphony that Berlioz's "Francs Juges" overture was played. A year later his "Symphonie Fantastique, Episode de la Vie d'un Artiste," was brought out. Yet the Berlioz orchestra sounds so utterly different from the Beethoven orchestra that it almost might be a collection of different instruments. Even more than Beethoven, Berlioz understood the individuality, the potential characteristics of each instrument.

Berlioz composed on a colossal scale, so colossal that his music has been called architectural. The "Dies Irae" in his "Requiem"

calls for four bra.s.s bands, in four different corners of the hall, and for fourteen kettledrums tuned to different notes, in addition to the regular orchestra, chorus and soloists. This has been dubbed "three-story music"--the orchestra on the ground floor, the chorus on the _belle etage_, while the four extra bra.s.s bands are stationed _aux troisieme_. Unfortunately for Berlioz, his ambition, in so far as it related to the art of orchestration and the skill he showed in accomplishing what he wanted to with his body of instrumentalists, was far in excess of his inspiration.

His knowledge of the orchestra was sufficient to have afforded him every facility for the expression of great thoughts if he had them to express. But his power of thematic invention, his gift for melody, was not equal to his genius for instrumentation.

Nevertheless, through this genius for instrumentation--for his technique was so extraordinary that it amounted to genius--and through his very striving after bizarre, unusual and gigantic effects, he contributed largely toward the development of the technical resources of instrumental music.

Wagner, Greatest of Orchestral Composers.

Berlioz wrote a book on instrumentation, which has lately been re-edited by Richard Strauss. In it Strauss, modestly ignoring himself, says that Wagner's scores mark the only advance in orchestration worth mentioning since Berlioz. It is true, the technical possibilities of the orchestra were greatly improved, so far as the woodwind was concerned, by the introduction of keyed instruments constructed on the system invented by Theobald Bohm; while the French instrument maker, Adolphe Sax, also made important improvements by perfecting the ba.s.s clarinet and the ba.s.s tuba. But whatever aid Wagner derived from these improvements merely was incidental to the principle which is ill.u.s.trated by every one of his scores--that technique merely is a means to an end. Wagner is the greatest orchestral virtuoso who ever breathed. Never, however, does he employ technique for technique's sake, but always only to enable his orchestra to convey the exact meaning he has in his mind or express the emotion he has in his heart, and he spares no pains to hit upon the best method of conveying these ideas and expressing these emotions. That is one reason why, although no one with any knowledge of music could mistake a pa.s.sage by Wagner for any one else's music, each of his works has its own peculiar orchestral style. For each of his works reproduces through the orchestra the "atmosphere" of its subject. The scores of "Tannhauser," "Lohengrin," "The Ring of the Nibelung," "Tristan," "Meistersinger" and "Parsifal" never could be mistaken for any one but Wagner's music. Yet how different they are from each other! He makes each instrument speak its own language.

When, for example, the English horn speaks through Wagner, it speaks English, not broken English, and so it is with all the other instruments of the orchestra--he makes them speak without a foreign accent.

If Wagner employs a large orchestra, it is not for the sake of making a noise, but in order to gain variety in expression. "He is wonderfully reserved in the use of his forces," says Richard Strauss.

"He employs them as a great general would his battalions, and does not send in an army corps to pick off a skirmisher." Strauss regards "Lohengrin" as a model score for a somewhat advanced student, before proceeding to the polyphony of "Tristan" and "Meistersinger" or "the fairy region of the 'Nibelungs.'" "The handling of the wind instruments," writes Strauss, "reaches a hitherto unknown esthetic height. The so-called third woodwinds, English horn and ba.s.s clarinet, added for the first time to the woodwinds, are already employed in a variety of tone color; the voices of the second, third and fourth horn, trumpets and trombones established in an independent polyphony, the doubling of melodic voices characteristic of Wagner, carried out with such a.s.surance and freedom and knowledge of their characteristic timbres, and worked out with an understanding of tonal beauty, that to this day evokes unstinted admiration. At the close of the second act the organ tones that Wagner lures out of the orchestra triumph over the queen of instruments itself."

How Wagner Produces His Effects.

The effects produced by Wagner are not due to a large orchestra, but to his manner of using the instruments in it. Among some of his special effects are the employment of full harmony with what formerly would have been merely single pa.s.sing notes, and above all, the exploitation of every resource of counterpoint in combination with the well developed system of harmony inherited from Beethoven, but largely added to by himself. In fact, Wagner's greatness is due to the combination of several great gifts--his melodic inventiveness, his rich harmony and his wonderful technical skill in weaving together his themes in a still richer counterpoint. This counterpoint is not, however, dry and formal, because his themes--his leading motives--are themselves full of emotional significance and not conceived, like those of the old contrapuntists, merely: for formal treatment.

Richard Strauss is such a master of orchestration that I am inclined to quote his summary of the development of the art of orchestration, from his edition of the Berlioz book, which at this writing has not yet been translated. I should like to recall to the reader's mind, however, the fact that Strauss' father was a noted French-horn player; that Strauss himself has a great love for the instrument; and that when, in summing up the causes of Wagner's primacy among orchestral writers, he finds one of them in the greater technical facility of the valve horn, it is well to take this with a grain of salt and attribute it somewhat to his own affection for the instrument. The symphonies of Haydn and Mozart, according to Strauss, are enlarged string quartets with obbligato woodwind, bra.s.s and tympani, and the occasional use of other instruments of noise to strengthen the tuttis.

"Even with Beethoven, the symphony is still simply enlarged chamber music, the orchestra being treated in a pianistic spirit which unfortunately shows itself even in the orchestral work of Schumann and Brahms. Wagner owes his polyphonic string quintet not to the Beethoven orchestra, but to the last quartets of Beethoven, in which each instrument is the peer of the others.

"Meanwhile, another kind of orchestral work was developing, for, from the time of Gluck on, the opera orchestra was gaining in coloring and in individual characteristics. Berlioz was not dramatic enough for opera nor symphonic enough for the concert stage, yet his efforts to write programmatic symphonies resulted in his discovering new effects, new possibilities in tone tints and in orchestral technics. Berlioz misses the polyphony that enriches Wagner's orchestra, and makes instruments like the second violins, violas, etc., second horns, etc., weave their threads or strands of melody into the woof. Wagner's primacy is due to his employment of the richest style of polyphony and counterpoint, the increased possibility of this through the invention of the valve horn, and his demand of solo virtuosity upon his orchestral players. His scores mark the only advance worth mentioning since Berlioz."

X

INSTRUMENTS OF THE ORCHESTRA

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 Walkure" could be made to sound more beautiful on its first entrance in the score than it does. Nor could it. In that scene it is exactly suited to a solo violoncello, and to a solo violoncello Wagner gives it. In order, however, to produce a perfectly h.o.m.ogenous 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 ba.s.ses 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 ba.s.ses, and produced a wondrously rich and thrilling effect--because, having a 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.

[Music ill.u.s.tration]

The woodwind instruments are capable of several similar subdivisions.

Flutes, oboes and ba.s.soons, for example, may form a group capable of producing independent harmony, so can the clarinets, and the same is the case with the bra.s.s 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 const.i.tute 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 ba.s.ses; the woodwind, consisting, broadly speaking, of flutes, oboes, clarinets and ba.s.soons; the bra.s.s--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 pa.s.sages. 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 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.

[Music ill.u.s.tration]

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 Ba.s.s.

The viola is a deeper violin, with a very beautiful and expressive tone. Mehul, 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 tone of the violin being missed more and more as the performance of the work progressed, until Gretry 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 a.s.signs to the instrument an equally important role.

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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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 Walkure."

Double ba.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage 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 ba.s.ses 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 ba.s.ses 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 Walkure." The entire string band can be divided and subdivided with telling effect, when done by a master. When in the second act of "Tristan" _Brangane_ 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 pa.s.sage 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 Walkure" much of the stormy effect is produced by strings only--sixteen second violins, twelve violas, twelve violoncellos and four double ba.s.ses--a storm for strings where another composer would have unleashed a whole orchestra, including cymbals and ba.s.s drum, and crashed and thrashed about without producing a t.i.the 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.