On 14 Jan 2007 at 17:56, John Howell wrote:
> At 4:48 PM -0500 1/14/07, David W. Fenton wrote:
> >The band repertory has two major strands, the
> >wind ensemble and the symphonic band and its variations, the
> >distinction being that the former has as an ideal one on a part, and
> >the latter assumes massed instruments on each part.
>
> Yes and no, and in any case this describes the present situation, not
> the historical one. The wind ensemble did not exist per se until Fred
> Fennell invented it at Eastman in what, the '50s?
Well, yes and no. The term "wind ensemble" certainly dates from the
mid-20th century. But the concept does not. It goes well back as far
as the history of our modern wind instruments.
> And "massed
> instruments" doesn't really describe any real band, except for
> 200-piece marching bands, whose goal is pageantry rather than
> musicality. Few concert bands have sections with 20 players, like the
> several string sections of an orchestra.
But they do assume that the clarinets and saxophones and trumpets and
trombones, at the very least, will be substantially doubled (more
than two on a part).
> Pictures of 19th century town bands almost invariably show a rather
> small band, on the order of 15-20 at most, but certainly not thought
> of as "chamber music" as we usually consider it.
But with doubling in the main sections (and the subordinate sections
likely undoubled or "less doubled" for balance).
> One on a part or
> more than one on a part depended on who was available, and was not a
> defining characteristic as it was with the string quartet or piano
> trio. Many of those bands were brass bands, with their own traditions
> and repertoire well established in Europe.
Hmm. I would disagree. I would say the ideal in bands was doubled
parts for the sections I mentioned above, but with the ability to
gracefully degrade to one on a part where necessary, just as one can
often play any number of orchestral works with string quartet and a
few wind instruments. Because of the relative carrying power of the
instruments, it works better for all-wind repertory than for string
orchestra with windws, but that's not the point -- the issue is which
end of the continuum from one on a part to massed instruments is the
ideal, not which can be used practically.
> Military bands, as opposed to town bands, always have a set number of
> players in the table of organization and none except the premier
> national showoff bands are as large as typical educational bands. The
> basic ecomonics haven't changed in centuries: If you're paying
> musicians you don't hire any more than you really need!
I don't know the actual answer to this question, but what is the
regulation constitution of the smallest US military band unit in
modern times (i.e., 20th century)? And how does it compare, say, to
the Civil War period? My guess is that cornets were never undoubled,
though they might have often been only 2 on a part (and, of course,
these were brass bands, with no clarinets).
> None of which is really important in the discussion of repertoire. The
> fact is that bands have an established repertoire of something over a
> hundred years (including transcriptions), orchestras of over 300 years
> (including operas and ballets), and choral ensemble of over 600 years.
I don't see how you can claim an orchestral repertory of 300 years
and disclaim the pre-band repertory as belonging to the modern
institution. Certainly the orchestra before c1750 was very, very
different from the modern orchestra (in reality, I'd say it was a
completely different animal). It was a much more ad hoc ensemble with
completely different assumptions about balance between sections (and
in many cases, effectively written in three independent parts instead
of four, with violas basically function at least half the time as
part of the bass section, rather than as any kind of independent
part, and the two violin parts often doubling each other). This has
implications for how the music is written (not least in dynamic
markings in the individual parts). For wind bands, that difference is
multiplied (multiple wind instruments on a single part seem to me to
produce more sound proportionally than the same number of multiple
string instruments on a part, i.e., as compared to the decible level
of the same part played on a single instrument), so the balance
problems become even more severe.
> It's easy to see why bands play living composers and why orchestras
> tend not to. What's really interesting, though, is that there's a
> healthy market for contemporary choral music in spite of the amount of
> older repertoire available.
>
> A significant question to me is whether avowedly educational music
> deserves to be counted as equal to supposedly serious music by
> supposedly serious composers. Subtract that from the band repertoire
> and there's a lot less left.
>
> >Wind ensembles would play the Gran Partita, while symphonic bands
> >would not. And keep in mind that it has a contrabass (it is, after
> >all, a serenade for 13 winds and contrabass,
>
> Isn't the string bass an alternative for a contrabassoon? Or am I
> thinking of some other Mozart?
The autograph says only "Contra Basso" and there is no title in
Mozart's hand ("Gran Partita" is in someone else's hand on the
autograph). Indeed, the autograph has no title at all in Mozart's
hand, so it's only from the generic plan that one can place it among
the Serenades as a genre. But a contemporary report on a performance
of the work says it was performed on "ein Contre-Violon", which would
be contrabass (this from the forward in the NMA). So, it's actual 12
instruments and contrabass -- dunno how I always had it in my head as
13 -- the 12 wind instruments are, of course, a standard number and
instrumentation for Harmonie (though 6 and 8 parts are the most
common).
The 1964 Köchel catalog (K6) lists it as contrabassoon, but the NMA
lists it as Contrabass (though, strangely, in the score, it's
"contrabbass" with two b's, something that doesn't seem to me to be
justified in the autograph, though the facsimile of the first page
printed in the NMA is too small and unclear for me to know for sure.
Given that Mozart writes "Contra- [line break] Baßo" (so far as I can
see) it would makes no sense that what is written is actually "Contra-
[line break] Bbaßo". So, I think the two b's are a misprint.
> >That's writing for "wind band" as a generic term, rather than for
> >wind bands as the traditional ensemble is constituted.
>
> Ah, but which tradition, one on a part, a few on a part, or several on
> a part? Or are those distinctions simply not appropriate? Can one
> realistically call tower music, played from the church belfry by town
> bandsmen with one on a part to entertain the town, chamber music?
Well, that is a completely different kettle of fish. I was not
deploying the term "chamber music" except to say that much wind music
is, like chamber music, intended for one instrument on a part (the
whole Harmonie repertory, for instance). Like the orchestra before
1750, I don't think there really is a fixed "wind band" before the
middle of the 19th century, except in the loose sense used to
describe the repertory of music written for an ad hoc collection of
winds. After c. 1850 (+/- 20 years), it seems to me that "wind band"
took on a more fixed meaning, though not a single one. But there are
also several varieties of orchestra, even after the crystallization
in the 18th century of the concept of the standing orchestra as a non-
ad hoc collection of instruments built around a string section.
--
David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com
David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/
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