At 6:38 PM -0500 1/14/07, David W. Fenton wrote:
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).
Yes, that's a fair statement. Given more
players, it would make sense to double melody
lines rather than the 2, 3 or 4 alto peckhorn
parts. And the typical brass band is as much a
collection of soloists plus ripienists as
Handel's or Corelli's orchestras.
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).
I don't know the answer either, but I will
inquire on the Community Music List, which is
likely to have more former military musicians
than this list.
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
I don't think we can talk about "the orchestra"
before 1750, because "the orchestra" didn't
exist. But that does not imply random groupings
of instruments. There WERE more or less standard
instrumentations in some places, at some times,
for some kinds of music. Assuming that Bach's
orchestras in Cöthen or Leipzig represented such
standards, we do see the typical 4-part string
writing (with exceptions, needless to say) with
winds for color. The same is true of the French
opera orchestra, with more 5-part writing with 2
viola(?) parts in Lully's music and also in the
music of some Germanic composers, although
perhaps less likely in Italian music, although
the French music puts more emphasis on the outer
parts than even the Germans do. In fact the
string section as the core of the orchestra (or
perhaps we should be calling it "the band" or
"the consort" to get away from preconceptions)
probably goes back to the 24 Violins of the
French King (meaning various sizes of the violin
family, of course). In fact I might argue (on a
good day!) that the modern orchestra can be
traced back to Monteverdi's scoring for "L'Orfeo"
in 1607, with the violin band second in
importance only to the basso continuo players.
The bottom line to me is that all that music can
be played effectively with a modern orchestra,
with suitable winds and suitable balance, and the
fact that Bach's orchestra was only about 20 is
just as irrelevant as the fact that they may (or
may not) have played at 415.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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