On 2 Jan 2005 at 14:11, Andrew Stiller wrote:
On Dec 31, 2004, at 6:58 PM, David W. Fenton wrote:
And in terms of orchestration, while [Schumann] made a few elementary mistakes that anyone with an orchestration teacher would have been trained *not* to make,
Such as what, for example? His orchestration tends to be stodgy and plain, certainly, but "elementary mistakes?" I'd be interested to know of any.
One thing I noticed that might have been considered a "mistake" at the time: he was one of the first to use an oboe-clarinet unison, which must have sounded weird at the time. Nowadays, of course, nobody blinks.
There are also a few places where natural balance is a little tough to achieve, like numerous passages where solo woodwinds are straining to be heard over thick orchestra passages, and trombones occasionally written high and soft in a way that is hard to pull off discreetly, but in the hands of first-rate orchestra none of that is insurmountable, nor even a flaw, in my opinion.
Yet one has to admire the apparently effortless ease in the way someone like Rimsky-Korsakov makes a potentially tough passage sit beautifully, both for the player and for the listener. I notice it more when I am playing than when I am listening, I must say.
Christopher
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