On Apr 4, 2006, at 1:25 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
Thanks to all who responded to this. The concensus seems to be that my
first idea was best, so that's how I'll go.
I would like to hear how the Shostakovich is set up though...
Whew!
Long time waiting for this answer. The original question was: how to
set up violin parts so that they are divided into three, rather than
two, parts. Shostakovich 5, 3rd movement is like this. We are playing
it now in the Sherbrooke Symphony, and I walked over at break and
checked out the violin parts. I should note that we are staffed
somewhat lightly in the strings, what might be considered to be a
medium-sized orchestra rather than a large one. We are 10-10-6-6-4 for
this concert, which is rather skinny for a work of this size, IMHO, but
they are all pretty strong players, which helps.
Well, first of all, the violas are divided into 2 and the cellos
likewise for the entire 3rd movement. No sweat there; it is business as
usual with double staves on the violas and celli.
In the violins, though, there were TWO different editions available,
and while we are playing a relatively modern Schirmer edition in the
rest of the orchestra, the conductor dug out earlier parts for the 3rd
movement for the violins only. I didn't get a look at the modern
edition of the violin parts, but the version he decided to use had all
three violin parts bracketed together, the same sheet of music for both
1sts and 2nds.
The conductor consulted with the concert master, and they worked out
divisions that changed throughout the movement based on how the part
was doubled elsewhere, or its relative importance. For example, at one
point two of the parts are in octaves, while the third part has an
independent line. He split the 1sts on the octave doubled line, while
assigning all of the 2nds to the third independent line. Later on, the
distribution changes. It was quite intricate, and it seems to me that
the composer could have (should have!) made those decisions himself,
and indicated them on the regular 1st and 2nd parts, which would have
saved a lot of bother.
In the rare instances where there actually are three distinct parts for
the violins (not octave-doublings of other voices) the conductor split
the firsts and seconds in this way:
The front 2/3 desks of firsts played violin 1.
The front 2/3 desks of seconds played violin 2.
The back 1/3 desks of firsts and seconds played violin 3.
This way the players playing the same parts sit together, and are more
or less evenly weighted. The concert master tells me that this last
method is overwhelmingly the most usual way of dividing three ways, and
we only went through the contortions we did in order to maximise the
sound of a medium-sized violin section.
Hope this helps everyone who was interested.
Christopher
(BTW, the work is very interesting, flirting on the edges of tonality,
and is brilliantly orchestrated, for those who don't know it. We have a
fantastic piccolist, as well as an excellent Eb clarinetist, both of
whom are very busy throughout, to excellent effect. It also uses piano
as part of the orchestra, which sounds very fresh to ears used to
Brahms, Beethoven and Mozart.)
_______________________________________________
Finale mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
