The word “orchestra” is now familiar to every schoolchild. This is the name of a large group of musicians who jointly perform a piece of music. Meanwhile in Ancient Greece The term “orchestra” (from which the modern word “orchestra” was later formed) denoted the area in front of the stage where the choir was located, an indispensable participant in ancient Greek tragedy. Later, a group of musicians began to be located on the same site, and it was called an “orchestra”.
Centuries have passed. And now the word “orchestra” itself has no specific meaning. Nowadays, there are different orchestras: brass, folk, accordion orchestras, chamber orchestras, pop-jazz, etc. But none of them can withstand competition with the “sound miracle”; This is how a symphony orchestra is often and, of course, quite rightly called.
The possibilities of a symphony orchestra are truly limitless. At his disposal are all shades of sonority, from barely audible vibrations and rustles to powerful thunderous peals. And the point is not even in the very breadth of dynamic shades (they are available to any orchestra at all), but in that captivating expressiveness that always accompanies the sound of true symphonic masterpieces. Timbre combinations, powerful wave-like rises and falls, expressive solo cues, and fused “organ” layers of sounds come to the rescue here.
Listen to some examples of symphonic music. Remember the fairy-tale picture of the famous Russian composer A. Lyadov, “The Magic Lake,” amazing in its soulful silence. The subject of the image here is nature in its untouched, static state. The composer also emphasizes this in his statement about the “Magic Lake”: “How picturesque, clean, with stars and mystery in the depths! And most importantly - without people, without their requests and complaints - only dead nature - cold, evil, but fantastic, like in a fairy tale.” However, Lyadov's score cannot be called dead or cold. On the contrary, it is warmed by a warm lyrical feeling - reverent, but restrained.
The famous Soviet musicologist B. Asafiev wrote that in this “poetic contemplative musical picture... Lyadov’s work masters the sphere of the lyrical symphonic landscape.” The colorful palette of “Magic Lake” is made up of veiled, muffled sounds, rustles, rustles, barely noticeable splashes and vibrations. Thin openwork touches predominate here. Dynamic build-ups are kept to a minimum. All orchestral voices carry an independent visual load. There is no melodic development in the true sense of the word; like flickering highlights, individual short phrases-motifs glow... Lyadov, who knew how to sensitively “hear silence,” with amazing skill paints a picture of an enchanted lake - a smoky, but inspired picture, full of a fabulous aroma and pure, chaste beauty. Such a landscape could only be “painted” with the help of a symphony orchestra, because no instrument and no other “orchestral organism” is able to depict such a visual picture and find such subtle timbre colors and shades for it.
But here is an example of the opposite type - the finale of the famous “Poem of Ecstasy” by A. Scriabin. The composer shows in this work the diversity of human states and actions in a steady and logically thought-out development; the music consistently conveys inertia, the awakening of the will, the confrontation with threatening forces, the struggle against them. Climax follows climax. Towards the end of the poem, the tension grows, preparing a new, even more grandiose rise. The epilogue of “The Poem of Ecstasy” turns into a dazzling picture of colossal scope. Against a sparkling background shimmering with all colors (an organ is also connected to the huge orchestra), eight horns and a trumpet joyfully proclaim the main musical theme, the sonority of which reaches superhuman strength towards the end. No other ensemble can achieve such power and majesty of sound. Only a symphony orchestra is capable of so richly and at the same time colorfully expressing delight, ecstasy, and a frantic upsurge of feelings.
Lyadov's “Magic Lake” and the epilogue of “The Poem of Ecstasy” are, so to speak, the extreme sound and dynamic poles in the rich sound palette of the symphony orchestra.
Let us now turn to an example of a different kind. The second part of D. Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony has the subtitle - “January 9th”. In it, the composer narrates the terrible events of “Bloody Sunday”. And at that moment, when the screams and groans of the crowd, gun salvos, the iron rhythm of a soldier’s step merge into a sound picture of amazing strength and power, the deafening barrage suddenly ends... And in the ensuing silence, in the “whistling” whisper of string instruments the quiet and mournful singing of the choir can be clearly heard. According to the apt definition of musicologist G. Orlov, one gets the impression “as if the air of Palace Square groaned with grief at the sight of the atrocity that had taken place.” Possessing an exceptional sense of timbre and brilliant mastery of instrumental writing, D. Shostakovich was able to create the illusion of a choral sound through purely orchestral means. There were even cases when, during the first performances of the Eleventh Symphony, listeners kept getting up from their seats, thinking that there was a choir on the stage behind the orchestra...
A symphony orchestra is capable of conveying a wide variety of naturalistic effects. Yes, outstanding German composer Richard Strauss in the symphonic poem “Don Quixote,” illustrating a famous episode from Cervantes’ novel, surprisingly “visually” depicted the bleating of a herd of sheep in the orchestra. In the suite French composer C. Saint-Saëns' "Carnival of Animals" wittily conveys the cries of donkeys, the clumsy gait of an elephant, and the restless roll call of hens and roosters. The Frenchman Paul Dukas in the symphonic scherzo “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (written based on the ballad of the same name by V. Goethe) brilliantly painted a picture of the wild water element (in the absence of the old wizard, the student decides to turn the broom into a servant: he forces him to carry water, which gradually floods the entire house ). There is no need to even say how many onomatopoeic effects are scattered in opera and ballet music; here they are also conveyed through the means of a symphony orchestra, but are prompted by the immediate stage situation, and not by a literary program, as in symphonic works. It is enough to recall such operas as “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” and “The Snow Maiden” by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, I. Stravinsky’s ballet “Petrushka” and others. Excerpts or suites from these works are often performed in symphony concerts.
And how many magnificent, almost visual paintings sea elements can be found in symphonic music! N. Rimsky-Korsakov's Suite "Scheherazade", "The Sea" by C. Debussy, the overture "The Calm of the Sea and Happy Sailing" by F. Mendelssohn, the symphonic fantasies "The Storm" by P. Tchaikovsky and "The Sea" by A. Glazunov - the list of such works is very large . Many works have been written for the symphony orchestra, depicting pictures of nature or containing apt landscape sketches. Let's name, for example, the Sixth (“Pastoral”) Symphony of L. Beethoven with a picture of a sudden thunderstorm, striking in its power of image, the symphonic picture of A. Borodin “In Central Asia,” the symphonic fantasy of A. Glazunov “Forest”, the “scene in the fields” from Fantastic symphonies by G. Berlioz. However, in all these works, the depiction of nature is always connected with the emotional world of the composer himself, as well as with the idea that determines the nature of the work as a whole. And in general, descriptive, naturalistic, onomatopoeic moments occupy a very small proportion in symphonic canvases. Moreover, program music itself, that is, music that consistently conveys a literary plot, also does not occupy a leading place among symphonic genres. The main thing that a symphony orchestra can be proud of is its rich palette of diverse means of expression, these are colossal, still not exhausted possibilities various combinations and combinations of instruments, these are the richest timbral resources of all groups that make up the orchestra.
A symphony orchestra differs sharply from other instrumental groups in that its composition is always strictly defined. Take, for example, the numerous pop-jazz ensembles that now exist in abundance in almost all corners of the globe. They are not at all similar to one another: the number of instruments varies (from 3-4 to two dozen or more) and the number of participants. But the most important thing is that these orchestras are not similar in their sound. Some are dominated by strings, others by saxophones and brass; in some ensembles the leading role is played by the piano (supported by drums and double bass); pop orchestras of different countries include national instruments, etc. Thus, almost every pop or jazz orchestra does not adhere to a strictly defined instrumental composition, but freely uses combinations of various instruments. Therefore, the same piece sounds differently in different pop-jazz groups: each of them offers its own specific treatment. And this is understandable: after all, jazz is an art that is fundamentally improvisational.
There are different brass bands. Some consist exclusively of brass instruments (with the obligatory inclusion of percussion). And most of them cannot do without woodwinds - flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons. Orchestras of folk instruments also differ from each other: the Russian folk orchestra is not similar to the Kyrgyz one, and the Italian one is not like folk orchestras Scandinavian countries. And only a symphony orchestra - the largest musical organism - has a long-established, strictly defined composition. Therefore, a symphonic work written in one country can be performed by any symphony ensemble in another country. Therefore, the language of symphonic music is truly an international language. It has been used for more than two centuries. And he doesn't age. Moreover, nowhere do so many interesting “internal” changes occur as there are in modern symphony orchestra. On the one hand, often replenished with new timbre colors, the orchestra becomes richer every year, on the other hand, its main skeleton, formed back in the 18th century, emerges more and more clearly. And sometimes composers of our time, turning to such an “old-fashioned” composition, once again prove how great its expressive capabilities still are...
Perhaps no other musical group has created so much wonderful music! In the brilliant galaxy of symphonic composers, the names of Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert, Mendelssohn and Schumann, Berlioz and Brahms, Liszt and Wagner, Grieg and Dvorak, Glinka and Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Scriabin, Glazunov and Taneyev, shine. Mahler and Bruckner, Debussy and Ravel, Sibelius and R. Strauss, Stravinsky and Bartok, Prokofiev and Shostakovich. In addition, the symphony orchestra, as is known, is an indispensable participant in opera and ballet performances. And therefore, to the hundreds of symphonic works we should add those fragments from operas and ballets in which the orchestra (and not soloists, choir or just stage action) plays a primary role. But that's not all. We watch hundreds of films and most of them are “sounded” by a symphony orchestra.
Radio, television, compact discs, and through them - symphonic music have firmly entered our lives. In many cinemas, small symphony orchestras play before screenings. Such orchestras are also created in amateur performances. In other words, of the huge, almost immense ocean of music that surrounds us, a good half is in one way or another connected with symphonic sound. Symphonies and oratorios, operas and ballets, instrumental concerts and suites, music for theater and cinema - all these (and many other) genres simply cannot do without a symphony orchestra.
However, it would be wrong to assume that any musical composition may be performed in an orchestra. After all, it would seem that knowing the principles and laws of instrumentation, every competent musician can orchestrate a piano or some other piece, that is, dress it in a bright symphonic outfit. However, in practice this happens relatively rarely. It is no coincidence that N. Rimsky-Korsakov said that instrumentation is “one of the aspects of the soul of the composition itself.” Therefore, already thinking about the idea, the composer counts on a certain instrumental composition. Therefore, both light, unpretentious pieces and grandiose, large-scale canvases can be written for a symphony orchestra.
There are, however, cases when a composition receives a second life in a new, symphonic version. This happened with M. Mussorgsky’s brilliant piano cycle “Pictures at an Exhibition”: it was masterfully orchestrated by M. Ravel. (There were other, less successful attempts to orchestrate Pictures at an Exhibition.) The scores of M. Mussorgsky’s operas “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina” came to life again under the hands of D. Shostakovich, who carried out their new orchestral edition. Sometimes in the composer’s creative heritage two versions of the same work coexist peacefully - solo-instrumental and symphonic. There are few such examples, but they are quite interesting. Ravel's Pavane exists in both piano and orchestral versions, and both live an equal concert life. Prokofiev orchestrated the slow movement of his Fourth Piano Sonata, making it an independent, purely symphonic work. Leningrad composer S. Slonimsky wrote the vocal cycle “Songs of the Freemen” based on folk texts; This work also has two versions of equal artistic significance: one is accompanied by piano, the other is accompanied by orchestral accompaniment. However, most often, when a composer sets to work, he has a good idea of not only the idea of the composition, but also its timbre embodiment. And such genres as symphony, instrumental concerto, symphonic poem, suite, rhapsody, etc. are always closely related to the sound of a symphony orchestra, one might even say, inseparable from it.
Woodwind instruments
Flute (Italian flauto, French flute, German Flote, English flute)
The flute is one of the oldest instruments in the world, known in ancient times - in Egypt, Greece and Rome. Since ancient times, people have learned to extract musical sounds from cut reeds closed at one end. This primitive musical instrument was, apparently, a distant ancestor of the flute. In Europe in the Middle Ages, two types of flutes became widespread: straight and transverse. The straight flute, or "tipped flute", was held straight in front of you, like an oboe or clarinet; oblique, or transverse - at an angle. The transverse flute turned out to be more viable, as it was easy to improve. In the mid-18th century, it finally replaced the direct flute from the symphony orchestra. At the same time, the flute, along with the harp and harpsichord, became one of the most favorite instruments for home music playing. The flute, for example, was played by the Russian artist Fedotov and the Prussian king Frederick II.
The flute is the most agile instrument of the woodwind group: in terms of virtuosity, it surpasses all other wind instruments. An example of this is the ballet suite “Daphnis and Chloe” by Ravel, where the flute actually acts as a solo instrument.
The flute is a cylindrical tube, wooden or metal, closed on one side - at the head. There is also a side hole for air injection. Playing the flute requires a lot of air consumption: when blowing in, some of it breaks on the sharp edge of the hole and escapes. This gives rise to a characteristic hissing sound, especially in the low register. For the same reason, sustained notes and broad melodies are difficult to play on the flute.
Rimsky-Korsakov described the sonority of the flute as follows: “The timbre is cold, most suitable for melodies of a graceful and frivolous nature in major, and with a touch of superficial sadness in minor.”
Often composers use an ensemble of three flutes. An example is the dance of the shepherdesses from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker".
Oboe (German: Oboe)
The oboe rivals the flute in its antiquity of origin: it traces its ancestry back to the primitive pipe. Of the ancestors of the oboe, the most widespread was the Greek aulos, without which the ancient Hellenes could not imagine either a feast or a theatrical performance. The ancestors of the oboe came to Europe from the Middle East.
In the 17th century, the oboe was created from the bombarda, a pipe-type instrument, which immediately became popular in the orchestra. Soon it became a concert instrument. For almost a century, the oboe has been the idol of musicians and music lovers. The best composers of the 17th and 18th centuries - Lully, Rameau, Bach, Handel - paid tribute to this hobby: Handel, for example, wrote concertos for oboe, the difficulty of which can confuse even modern oboists. However, at the beginning of the 19th century, the “cult” of the oboe in the orchestra faded somewhat, and the leading role in the woodwind group passed to the clarinet.
In its structure, the oboe is a conical tube; at one end there is a small funnel-shaped bell, at the other there is a cane, which the performer holds in his mouth.
Thanks to some design features, the oboe never loses tuning. Therefore, it has become a tradition to tune the entire orchestra to it. Before a symphony orchestra, when the musicians gather on the stage, you can often hear the oboist playing A in the first octave, while other performers tune their instruments.
The oboe has a flexible technique, although it is inferior in this regard to the flute. It is more of a singing instrument than a virtuoso instrument: its domain, as a rule, is sadness and elegance. This is how it sounds in the theme of swans from the intermission to the second act of Swan Lake and in the simple melancholic melody of the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s 4th symphony. Occasionally, the oboe is assigned “comic roles”: in Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” for example, in the variation “The Cat and the Pussycat,” the oboe amusingly imitates the meowing of a cat.
Bassoon (Italian fagotto, German Fagott, French bassoon, English bassoon)
The ancestor of the bassoon is considered to be an ancient bass pipe - the bombarda. The bassoon that replaced it was built by Canon Afranio degli Albonesi in the first half of the 16th century. The large wooden tube, bent in half, resembled a bundle of firewood, which is reflected in the name of the instrument (the Italian word fagotto means “faggot”). The bassoon captivated his contemporaries with the euphony of timbre, who, in contrast to the hoarse voice of the bombards, began to call him “dolcino” - sweet.
Subsequently, while maintaining its external outline, the bassoon underwent serious improvements. From the 17th century he joined the symphony orchestra, and from the 18th century - to the military orchestra. The conical wooden barrel of the bassoon is very large, so it is “folded” in half. A curved metal tube is attached to the top of the instrument, onto which a cane is placed. While playing, the bassoon is suspended on a cord from the performer's neck.
In the 18th century, the instrument enjoyed great love among its contemporaries: some called it “proud,” others called it “gentle, melancholic, religious.” Rimsky-Korsakov defined the color of the bassoon in a very unique way: “The timbre is senilely mocking in major and painfully sad in minor.” Playing the bassoon requires a lot of breathing, and forte in a low register can cause extreme fatigue for the performer. The functions of the tool are very diverse. True, in the 18th century they were often limited to supporting string basses. But in the 19th century, with Beethoven and Weber, the bassoon became the individual voice of the orchestra, and each of the subsequent masters found new properties in it. Meyerbeer in “Robert the Devil” made the bassoons depict “deathly laughter, from which frost creeps down the skin” (Berlioz’s words). Rimsky-Korsakov in “Scheherazade” (the story of Kalender the Tsarevich) discovered a poetic narrator in the bassoon. The bassoon performs especially often in this last role - which is probably why Thomas Mann called the bassoon a “mockingbird.” Examples can be found in the Humorous Scherzo for four bassoons and in Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, where the bassoon is assigned the "role" of the Grandfather, or at the beginning of the finale of Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony.
contrabassoon
The varieties of bassoon are limited in our time to just one representative - the counterbassoon. This is the lowest instrument in the orchestra. Only the pedal bass of the organ sounds lower than the extreme sounds of the counterbassoon.
The idea of continuing the bassoon scale downward appeared a very long time ago - the first counterbassoon was built in 1620. But it was so imperfect that until the end of the 19th century, when the instrument was improved, it was used very little: occasionally by Haydn, Beethoven, Glinka.
A modern contrabassoon is an instrument curved three times: its length when unfolded is 5 m 93 cm (!); in technique it resembles a bassoon, but is less agile and has a thick, almost organ-like timbre. Composers of the 19th century - Rimsky-Korsakov, Brahms - usually turned to the contrabassoon to enhance the bass. But sometimes interesting solos are written for him. Ravel, for example, in “Conversation between Beauty and the Beast” (ballet “My Mother Goose”) assigned him the voice of the monster.
Clarinet (Italian clarinetto, German Klarinette, French clarinette)
While the oboe, flute and bassoon have been in the orchestra for more than four centuries, the clarinet became firmly established only in the 18th century. The ancestor of the clarinet was a medieval folk instrument - the Chalumeau pipe. It is believed that in 1690 the German master Denner managed to improve it. The upper register of the instrument amazed contemporaries with its sharp and piercing timbre - it immediately reminded them of the sound of a trumpet, which was called at that time “clarino”. The new instrument was called clarinetto, which means “small trumpet.”
In appearance, the clarinet resembles an oboe. It is a cylindrical wooden tube with a corolla-shaped bell at one end and a cane-tip at the other.
Of all the woodwinds, only the clarinet can flexibly change the sound strength. This and many other qualities of the clarinet made its sound one of the most expressive voices in the orchestra. It is curious that two Russian composers, dealing with the same plot, acted in exactly the same way: in both “The Snow Maidens” - by Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky - Lel’s shepherd tunes are entrusted to the clarinet.
The clarinet's timbre is often associated with dark, dramatic situations. This area of expressiveness was “discovered” by Weber. In the "Wolf Valley" scene from "The Magic Shooter" he first guessed what tragic effects were hidden in the low register of the instrument. Tchaikovsky later used the eerie sound of low clarinets in The Queen of Spades when the ghost of the Countess appears.
Small clarinet.
The small clarinet came to the symphony orchestra from the military brass orchestra. Berlioz first used it, entrusting him with the distorted “beloved theme” in the last movement of the Symphonie Fantastique. Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov, and R. Strauss often turned to the small clarinet. Shostakovich.
Bassethorn.
At the end of the 18th century, the clarinet family was enriched with one more member: the basset horn appeared in the orchestra - old variety alto clarinet. It was larger than the main instrument, and its timbre - calm, solemn and matte - occupied an intermediate position between a regular and bass clarinet. He stayed in the orchestra for only a few decades and owed his heyday to Mozart. It was for two basset horns with bassoons that the beginning of the “Requiem” was written (now the basset horns are replaced by clarinets).
An attempt to revive this instrument under the name of alto clarinet was made by R. Strauss, but since then it seems to have not been repeated. Nowadays, basset horns are included in military bands.
Bass clarinet.
The bass clarinet is the most “impressive” representative of the family. Built at the end of the 18th century, it has gained a strong position in the symphony orchestra. The shape of this instrument is quite unusual: its bell is bent upward, like a smoking pipe, and the mouthpiece is mounted on a curved rod - all this in order to reduce the exorbitant length of the instrument and make it easier to use. Meyerbeer was the first to “discover” the enormous dramatic power of this instrument. Wagner, starting with Lohengrin, makes him the permanent bass of the woodwinds.
Russian composers often used the bass clarinet in their work. Thus, the gloomy sounds of the bass clarinet are heard in the 5th scene of “The Queen of Spades” while Herman reads Lisa’s letter. Now the bass clarinet is a permanent member of a large symphony orchestra, and its functions are very diverse.
Preview:
Brass
Saxophone
The creator of the saxophone is the outstanding French-Belgian instrumental master Adolphe Sax. Sax proceeded from a theoretical assumption: is it possible to build a musical instrument that would occupy an intermediate position between woodwind and brass? Such an instrument, capable of combining the timbres of copper and wood, was greatly needed by the imperfect military brass bands of France. To implement his plan, A. Sachs used a new construction principle: he connected a conical tube with a clarinet reed and an oboe valve mechanism. The body of the instrument was made of metal, the external outline resembled a bass clarinet; a tube flared at the end, strongly bent upward, to which a cane is attached to a metal tip bent in the shape of an “S”. Sax's idea was a brilliant success: the new instrument truly became a link between the brass and woodwinds in military bands. Moreover, its timbre turned out to be so interesting that it attracted the attention of many musicians. The color of the saxophone's sound is reminiscent of the English horn, clarinet and cello at the same time, but the power of the saxophone's sound is much greater than the power of the clarinet's sound.
Having begun its existence in the military brass bands of France, the saxophone was soon introduced into the opera and symphony orchestras. For a very long time - several decades - only French composers turned to him: Thomas ("Hamlet"), Massenet ("Werther"), Bizet ("Arlesienne"), Ravel (instrumentation of "Katrinok at an Exhibition" by Mussorgsky). Then composers from other countries also believed in him: Rachmaninov, for example, entrusted the saxophone with one of his best melodies in the first part of the Symphonic Dances.
It is curious that on its unusual path the saxophone also had to face obscurantism: in Germany during the years of fascism it was banned as an instrument of non-Aryan origin.
In the tenth years of the 20th century, musicians from jazz ensembles drew attention to the saxophone, and soon the saxophone became the “king of jazz.”
Many composers of the 20th century appreciated this interesting instrument. Debussy wrote a Rhapsody for saxophone and orchestra, Glazunov wrote a Concerto for saxophone and orchestra, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachaturian repeatedly addressed him in their works.
Horn (Italian corno, German Waldhorn, French cor, English french horn)
The ancestor of the modern horn was the horn. Since ancient times, the horn signal announced the beginning of a battle; in the Middle Ages and later, until the beginning of the 18th century, it was heard during hunting, competitions and solemn court ceremonies. In the 17th century, the hunting horn began to be occasionally introduced into opera, but it was only in the next century that it became a permanent member of the orchestra. And the very name of the instrument - horn - recalls its past role: this word comes from the German "Waldhorn" - "forest horn". In Czech this instrument is still called a forest horn.
The metal tube of the ancient horn was very long: when unfolded, some of them reached 5 m 90 cm. It was impossible to hold such an instrument straight in your hands; Therefore, the horn tube was bent and given a graceful shape, similar to a shell.
The sound of the ancient horn was very beautiful, but the instrument turned out to be limited in its sound capabilities: it was possible to extract only the so-called natural scale, that is, those sounds that arise from dividing a column of air enclosed in a tube into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. parts. According to legend, in 1753 the Dresden horn player Gampel accidentally put his hand into the bell and discovered that the horn's tuning had dropped. Since then, this technique has been widely used. Sounds obtained in this way were called “closed”. But they were dull and very different from the bright open ones. Not all composers risked turning to them often, usually being satisfied with short, good-sounding fanfare motifs built on open sounds.
In 1830, the valve mechanism was invented - a permanent system of additional tubes that allows the horn to produce a full, good-sounding chromatic scale. After several decades, the improved horn finally replaced the old natural one, which last time was used by Rimsky-Korsakov in the opera "May Night" in 1878.
The horn is considered the most poetic instrument in the brass group. In the low register the horn timbre is somewhat gloomy, in the upper register it is very tense. The horn can sing or slowly narrate. The horn quartet sounds very softly - you can hear it in the "Waltz of the Flowers" from the ballet "The Nutcracker" by Tchaikovsky.
Trumpet (Italian tromba, German Trompete, French trompette, English trumpet)
Since ancient times - in Egypt, in the East, in Greece and Rome - they have not done without a trumpet either in war or in solemn religious or court ceremonies. The trumpet has been part of the opera orchestra since its inception; Monteverdi's Orpheus already featured five trumpets.
In the 17th and first half of the 18th century, very virtuoso and high tessitura parts were written for trumpets, the prototype of which were the soprano parts in the vocal and instrumental works of that time. To perform these most difficult parts, musicians from the times of Purcell, Bach and Handel used natural instruments common in that era with a long tube and a mouthpiece of a special device that made it possible to easily extract the highest overtones. A trumpet with such a mouthpiece was called a “clarino”; the writing style for it received the same name in the history of music.
In the second half of the 18th century, with changes in orchestral writing, the clarino style was forgotten, and the trumpet became primarily a fanfare instrument. It was limited in its capabilities like the horn, and found itself in an even worse position, since “closed sounds” that expand the scale were not used on it because of their bad timbre. But in the thirties of the 19th century, with the invention of the valve mechanism, a new era began in the history of the pipe. It became a chromatic instrument and after a few decades replaced the natural trumpet from the orchestra.
The timbre of the trumpet is not typical for lyricism, but it succeeds in heroics in the best possible way. Among the Viennese classics, trumpets were a purely fanfare instrument. They often performed the same functions in the music of the 19th century, announcing the beginning of processions, marches, solemn festivals and hunts. Wagner used pipes more than others and in a new way. Their timbre is almost always associated in his operas with knightly romance and heroism.
The trumpet is famous not only for its power of sound, but also for its outstandingvirtuoso qualities.
Tuba (Italian tuba)
Unlike other representatives of the brass group of wind instruments, the tuba is a fairly young instrument. It was built in the second quarter of the 19th century in Germany. The first tubas were imperfect and were initially used only in military and garden orchestras. Only when it came to France, into the hands of instrumental master Adolphe Sax, did the tuba begin to meet the high demands of the symphony orchestra.
The tuba is a bass instrument that can cover the lowest range of the brass band. In the past, its functions were performed by the serpent, a bizarrely shaped instrument that owes its name to it (in all Romance languages, serpent means “snake”), then the bass and contrabass trombones and the ophicleide with its barbaric timbre. But the sound qualities of all these instruments were such that they did not give the brass band a good, stable bass. Until the tuba appeared, the masters persistently searched for a new instrument.
The dimensions of the tuba are very large, its tube is twice as long as the trombone tube. While playing, the performer holds the instrument in front of him with the bell facing upward.
Tuba is a chromatic instrument. The air consumption on the tube is enormous; sometimes, especially in forte in the low register, the performer is forced to change his breathing on each sound. Therefore, solos on this instrument are usually quite short. Technically, the tube is movable, although it is heavy. In an orchestra, she usually serves as bass in a trombone trio. But sometimes the tuba acts as a solo instrument, so to speak, in character roles. Thus, when orchestrating Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” in the play “Cattle,” Ravel assigned the bass tuba to a humorous image of a rattling cart dragging along the road. The tuba part wrote here in a very high register.
Trombone (Italian, English, French trombone)
Trombone gets its name from the Italian name for trumpet - tromba - with the magnifying suffix "one": trombone literally means "trumpet". And indeed: the trombone tube is twice as long as the trumpet. Already in the 16th century the trombone received its modern form and from the moment of its inception it was a chromatic instrument. The full chromatic scale is achieved on it not through a valve mechanism, but using the so-called backstage. The link is a long additional tube, shaped like the letter U. It is inserted into the main tube and lengthens it if desired. In this case, the pitch of the instrument decreases accordingly. The performer pushes the slide down with his right hand and supports the instrument with his left.
Trombones have long been a “family” of instruments of various sizes. Not so long ago, the trombone family consisted of three instruments; each of them corresponded to one of the three voices of the choir and received its name: alto trombone, tenor trombone, bass trombone.
Playing the trombone requires a huge amount of air, as moving the slide takes longer than pressing the valves on a horn or trumpet. Technically, the trombone is less agile than its neighbors in the group: its scale is not so fast and clear, the forte is a bit heavy, the legato is difficult. Cantilena on the trombone requires a lot of effort from the performer. However, this instrument has qualities that make it indispensable in an orchestra: the sound of the trombone is more powerful and masculine. Monteverdi, in the opera "Orpheus", perhaps for the first time felt the tragic character inherent in the sound of the trombone ensemble. And starting with Gluck, three trombones became mandatory in the opera orchestra; they often appear in climax dramas.
The trombone trio is good at oratorical phrases. Since the second half of the 19th century, the trombone group has been supplemented by a bass instrument - the tuba. Together, three trombones and a tuba form a “heavy brass” quartet.
A very unique effect is possible on the trombone - glissando. It is achieved by sliding the backstage at one position of the performer's lips. This technique was already known to Haydn, who in his oratorio “The Seasons” used it to imitate the barking of dogs. In modern music, glissando is used quite widely. The deliberately howling and rough glissando of the trombone in the “Sabre Dance” from the ballet “Gayane” by Khachaturian is curious. Also interesting is the effect of a trombone with a mute, which gives the instrument an ominous, bizarre sound.
Flugelhorn (German Flugelhorn, from Flugel - “wing” and Horn - “horn”, “horn”)
Brass musical instrument. Outwardly, it is very reminiscent of a trumpet or cornet-a-piston, but differs from them in its wider scale and conical bore, starting immediately from the mouthpiece part of the tube. Has 3 or 4 valves. Used in jazz ensembles, sometimes in symphony orchestras, less often in brass bands. Flugelhorns are often played by trumpeters, performing the required passages on this instrument.
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Violin (Italian violino, French violon, English violin, German Violine, Geige)
The violin is rightly called a descendant of other, earlier stringed instruments.
The first bowed instrument, the fidel, appeared in Europe in the 10th and 11th centuries.the other - zhiga - becamea favorite musical instrument of French minstrels, traveling singers and musicians of the 12th and 13th centuries. After some time, fidels, rebecs and gigs gave way to ancient viols: viol da gamba, viol da bardone, viol quinton - the place of which, in turn, was taken by violins. They appeared in France and Italy already at the beginning of the 16th century, and soon after that the art of making bows spread throughout Europe. They began to be made in Tyrol, Vienna, Saxony, Holland and England, but Italy was famous for the best violins. In Brescia and Cremona - two small towns in the northeast of the country - people worked more than five centuries ago outstanding masters: Gasparo Bertolotti (nicknamed de Salo) in Brescia and Andrea Amati in Cremona. The art of violin making has been passed down from generation to generation, and for two hundred years the Amati, Guarneri, and Stradivari families have created instruments that are still considered among the best.
The shape of the violin was determined back in the 16th century and since then has changed only in details.
Everything that has been said about string technique applies specifically to the violin: it is the mosta movable and flexible instrument among bowed instruments. Its technical capabilities grew along with the art of such virtuosos as Vitali, Torelli and Corelli in the 17th century,and later - Tartini,Viotti, Spohr, Vietan, Berio, Wieniawski, Sarasate, Ysaï and, of course, N. Paganini. He mastered the amazing art of playing double notes, chords, pizzicato, and harmonics. When his strings broke during a concert, he continued to play the remaining ones.
An irresistible effect is achieved by a solo violin performing the main theme - as an example we can cite Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade".
For all its qualities, the violin, along with the piano, has long played a leading role among solo concert instruments.
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Drums
Timpani (Italian timpani, French timbales, German Pauken)
Timpani are one of the most ancient instruments in the world. Since ancient times, they were widespread in many countries: in the East and Africa, in Greece, in Rome and among the Scythians. People played the timpani to accompany important events in their lives: holidays and wars.
Small, hand-held timpani have long been used in Europe. Medieval knights used them while riding a horse. Large timpani entered Europe only in the 15th century - through Turkey and Hungary. In the 17th century, timpani entered the orchestra.
Modern timpani look like large copper cauldrons on a stand, covered with leather. The skin is pulled tightly onto the boiler using several screws. They hit the skin with two sticks with soft round felt tips.
Unlike others percussion instruments with leather, timpani produce a sound of a certain pitch. Each timpani is tuned to certain tone Therefore, in order to get two sounds, the orchestra began to use a pair of timpani from the 17th century. The timpani can be rebuilt: to do this, the performer must tighten or loosen the skin with screws: the greater the tension, the higher the tone. However, this operation is time-consuming and risky during execution. Therefore, in the 19th century, masters invented mechanical timpani, which could be quickly adjusted using levers or pedals.
The role of timpani in an orchestra is quite varied. Their beats emphasize the rhythm of other instruments, forming either simple or intricate rhythmic figures. Rapid alternation of strokes of both sticks (tremolo) produces an effective increase in sound or reproduction of thunder. Haydn also depicted thunderclaps using timpani in The Four Seasons. Shostakovich in the Ninth Symphony makes the timpani imitate cannonade. Sometimes the timpani are assigned small melodic solos, as, for example, in the first movement of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony.
Snare drum (Italian tamburo (military), French tambour (military), German Trommel, English side drum)
The snare drum is basically a military instrument. It is a flat cylinder covered with leather on both sides. Strings are stretched under the skin on the underside; responding to the blows of the sticks, they give the sound of the drum a characteristic crackling sound. The drum roll sounds very interesting - a tremolo with two sticks, which can be brought to extreme speed. The strength of the sound in such a tremolo varies from a rustle to a thunderous crack. The overture to Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie" begins with the roll of two snare drums; the dull beat of the snare drum is heard at the moment of the execution of Till Eulenspiegel in the symphonic poem by Richard Strauss.
Sometimes the strings under the bottom skin of the drum are lowered and they stop responding to the blows of the sticks. This effect is equivalent to introducing a mute: the snare drum loses the power of sound. This is how it sounds in the dance section “Tsarevich and Princess” in “Scheherazade” by Rimsky-Korsakov.
The snare drum first appeared in small opera in the 19th century, and at first it was introduced only in military episodes. Meyerbeer was the first to introduce the snare drum beyond military episodes in the operas “The Huguenots” and “The Prophet.”
In some cases, the snare drum becomes the “main character” not only in large symphonic episodes, but also in the whole work. Examples include the “invasion episode” from Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony and Ravel’s “Bolero,” where one and then two snare drums hold the entire rhythmic pulse of the music.
Bass drum (Italian gran casso, French grosse caisse, German grobe Trommel, English bass drum).
Nowadays there are two types of bass drum. One of them is a metal cylinder of large diameter - up to 72 cm - covered with leather on both sides. This type of bass drum is common in military bands, jazz bands, and symphony orchestras in America. Another type of drum is a hoop with skin on one side. It originated in France and quickly spread to symphony orchestras in Europe. To strike the skin of the bass drum, a wooden stick with a soft mallet covered with felt or cork is used.
Very often, the beats of the bass drum are accompanied by the ringing of cymbals or alternate with it, as in the rapid dance “In the Cave of the Mountain King” from Grieg’s Peer Gynt. On a bass drum, rapid alternation of strokes - tremolo - is also possible. To do this, use a stick with two mallets at both ends or timpani sticks. The bass drum tremolo was very successfully used by Rimksy-Korsakov in the instrumentation of Mussorgsky's symphonic film "Night on Bald Mountain".
At first, the big drum appeared only in “Turkish music,” but from the beginning of the 19th century they often began to be used for sound-representative purposes: to imitate cannonades and thunderclaps. Beethoven included three large drums in the “Battle of Vittoria” to depict cannon shots. For the same purpose, Rimsky-Korsakov used this instrument in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan,” Shostakovich in the Eleventh Symphony, and Prokofiev in the eighth scene of the opera “War and Peace” (the beginning of the Battle of Borodino). At the same time, the big drum also sounds where there is no onomatopoeia and especially often in noisy,
Xylophone (Italian xylofono, French xylophone)
The xylophone was apparently born at the moment when primitive man struck a dry wooden block with a stick and heard the sound of a certain tone. Many such primitive wooden xylophones have been found in South America, Africa and Asia. In Europe, from the 15th century, this instrument fell into the hands of traveling musicians and only at the beginning of the 19th century it became a concert instrument. He owes his improvement to the Mogilev musician, self-taught dulcimer player Mikhail Iosifovich Guzikov.
The sounding body in a xylophone is wooden blocks of different sizes (xylon - in Greek “tree”, phone - “sound”). They are arranged in four rows on strands of matting. The performer can roll them up and lay them out on a special table during the game; They play the xylophone with two wooden sticks - “goat legs”. The xylophone sound is dry, clicking and sharp. It is very characteristic in color, so its appearance in a piece of music is usually associated with a special plot situation or a special mood. Rimsky-Korsakov in “The Tale of Tsar Saltan” entrusts the xylophone with the song “Whether in the garden or in the vegetable garden” at the moment when a squirrel is gnawing on golden nuts. Lyadov uses the sounds of a xylophone to depict the flight of Baba Yaga in a mortar, trying to convey the crackling of broken branches. Often the timbre of a xylophone evokes a gloomy mood and creates bizarre, grotesque images. The short phrases of the xylophone in the “invasion episode” from Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony sound melancholic.
The xylophone is a very virtuosic instrument. It allows for greater fluency in fast passages, tremolo and a special effect - glissando: rapid movement of the stick along the bars.
Cymbals (Italian: piatti, French: cymbales, German: Becken, English: cymbals)
Plates were already known to the ancient world and the ancient East, but the Turks were famous for their special love and exceptional art of making them. In Europe, plates became popular in the 18th century, after the war with the Ottomans.
Plates are large metal dishes made from copper alloys. The cymbals are slightly convex in the center - leather straps are attached here so that the performer can hold the instrument in his hands. Cymbals are played standing up so that nothing interferes with their vibration and so that the sound travels freely in the air. The usual way of playing this instrument is an oblique, sliding blow of one cymbal against another - after this there is a ringing metallic splash that hangs in the air for a long time. If the performer wants to stop the vibration of the cymbals, he brings them to his chest and the vibrations cease. Often composers accompany the crash of the cymbals with the thunder of a bass drum; these instruments often sound together, as, for example, in the first bars of the finale of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. In addition to the oblique blow, there are several other ways of playing cymbals: when, for example, a freely hanging cymbal is struck either with a timpani stick or with wooden snare drum sticks.
A symphony orchestra usually uses one pair of cymbals. In rare cases - as, for example, in Berlioz's "Funeral-Triumphal Symphony", three pairs of plates are used.
Triangle (Italian triahgalo, French triangle, German Triangel, English triangl)
The triangle is one of the smallest instruments in a symphony orchestra. It is a steel rod bent in the shape of a triangle. They hang it on a gut string and hit it with a small metal stick - a ringing, very clear sound is heard.
The ways to play the triangle are not very diverse. Sometimes only one sound is produced on it, sometimes simple rhythmic patterns are produced. Sounds good on a tremolo triangle.
The triangle was first mentioned in the 15th century. In the 18th century it was used in opera by the composer Grétry. Then the triangle became an invariable participant in the “Turkish”, i.e. exotic music, appearing along with a bass drum and cymbals. This group of percussion was used by Mozart in “The Abduction from the Seraglio”, Beethoven in the “Turkish March” from “The Ruins of Athens” and some other composers who sought to reproduce the musical image of the East. The triangle is also interesting in elegant dance pieces: in “Anitra’s Dance” from Grieg’s “Peer Gynt”, Glinka’s “Waltz-Fantasy”.
Bells (Italian campanelli, French carillon, German Glockenspiel)
Bells are probably the most poetic instrument of the percussion group. Its name comes from its ancient variety, where the sounding body was small bells tuned to a certain pitch. Later they were replaced by a set of metal plates of different sizes. They are arranged in two rows, like piano keys, and mounted in a wooden box. The bells are played with two metal mallets. There is another variety of this instrument: keyboard bells. They have a piano keyboard and hammers that transmit vibrations from the keys to metal plates. However, this chain of mechanisms does not reflect very well on their sound: it is not as bright and ringing as on ordinary bells. However, while inferior to hammer bells in the beauty of sound, keyboards are technically superior. Thanks to the piano keyboard, fairly fast passages and polyphonic chords are possible on them. The timbre of the bells is silvery, gentle and ringing. They sound in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” during Papageno’s entrance, in the aria with bells in Delibes’ “Lakmé,” in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Snow Maiden,” when Mizgir, pursuing the Snow Maiden, sees the lights of fireflies, in “The Golden Cockerel” when the Astrologer exits.
Bells (Italian campane, French cloches, German Glocken)
Since ancient times, the ringing of bells has called people to religious ceremonies and holidays, and also announced misfortunes. With the development of opera, with the appearance of historical and patriotic subjects in it, composers began to introduce bells into the opera house. The sounds of bells in Russian opera are especially richly represented: the solemn ringing in “Ivan Susanin”, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan”, “The Woman of Pskov” and “Boris Godunov” (in the coronation scene), the alarming alarm bell in “Prince Igor”, the funeral chime in “ Boris Godunov." All of these operas featured real church bells, which are placed behind the stage in large opera houses. However, not every opera house could afford to have its own belfry, so composers only occasionally introduced small bells into the orchestra - as Tchaikovsky did in the 1812 Overture. Meanwhile, with the development of program music, the need increasingly arose to imitate the ringing of bells in a symphony orchestra - so, after a while, orchestral bells were created - a set of steel pipes suspended from a frame. In Russia these bells are called Italian. Each of the pipes is tuned to a specific tone; hit them with a metal hammer with a rubber gasket.
Orchestral bells were used by Puccini in the opera “Tosca”, Rachmaninov in the vocal-symphonic poem “The Bells”. Prokofiev in "Alexander Nevsky" replaced the pipes with long metal bars.
Tambourine
One of the oldest instruments in the world, the tambourine appeared in the symphony orchestra in the 19th century. The design of this instrument is very simple: as a rule, it is a wooden hoop with leather stretched over one side. Metal trinkets are attached to the slot of the hoop (on the side), and small bells are strung inside, on a star-shaped string. All this rings at the slightest shaking of the tambourine.
The part of the tambourine, as well as other drums that do not have a certain pitch, is usually written not on a staff, but on a separate ruler, which is called a “thread”.
The techniques for playing the tambourine are very diverse. First of all, these are sharp blows on the skin and beating complex rhythmic patterns on it. In these cases, both the skin and the bells make sound. When struck strongly, the tambourine rings sharply; when touched lightly, a slight tinkling of bells is heard. There are many ways when the performer makes only one bell sound. This is a rapid shaking of the tambourine - it gives a piercing tremolo; this is a gentle shaking; and finally, a spectacular trill is heard when the performer runs a wet thumb over the skin: this technique causes the lively ringing of bells.
The tambourine is a characteristic instrument, so it is not used in every work. Usually he appears where the East or Spain should come to life in music: in “Scheherazade” and in “Capriccio Espagnol” by Rimsky-Korsakov, in the dance of Arab boys in the ballet “Raymonda” by Glazunov, in the temperamental dances of the Polovtsians in “Prince Igor” by Borodin, in "Carmen" by Bizet.
Castanets (Spanish: castanetas)
The name "castanets" means "little chestnuts" in Spanish. Spain was most likely their homeland; there the castanets turned into real ones national instrument. Castanets are made from hard wood: ebony or boxwood; castanets are shaped like shells.
In Spain, two pairs of castanets were used to accompany dancing and singing; each pair was held together by a cord that was tightened around the thumb. The remaining fingers, remaining free, tapped intricate rhythms on the wooden shells. Each hand required its own size of castanets: in the left hand the performer held shells of large volume, they emitted a lower tone and had to tap out the main rhythm. Castanets for right hand were smaller in size; their tone was higher. Spanish dancers and dancers were fluent in this complex art, which they had been taught since childhood. The dry, playful clicking of castanets always accompanied the temperamental Spanish dances: bolero, seguidillo, fandango.
When composers wanted to introduce castanets into symphonic music, a simplified version of this instrument was designed - orchestral castanets. These are two pairs of shells mounted on the ends of a wooden handle. When they are shaken, a clicking sound is heard - a weak copy of real Spanish castanets.
In the orchestra, castanets began to be used primarily in music of a Spanish nature: in Glinka’s Spanish overtures “The Aragonese Hunt” and “Night in Madrid”, in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Capriccio Espagnol”, in Spanish dancing from Tchaikovsky's ballets, and in Western music - in Bizet's "Carmen", in the symphonic works "Iberia" by Debussy, "Alborada del Gracioso" by Ravel. Some composers took castanets beyond the scope of Spanish music: Saint-Saëns used them in the opera Samson and Dalida, Prokofiev - in the third piano concerto.
Tam-tam (French and Italian tam-tam, German Tam-Tam)
The tam-tam, a percussion instrument of Chinese origin, has the shape of a disk with thickened edges. It is made from a special alloy close to bronze. When playing tam-tam, the tam-tam is hung from a wooden frame and struck with a felt-tipped mallet. The sound of tam-tam is low and thick; after the impact it spreads for a long time, now flowing in, now moving away. This feature of the instrument and the very nature of its timbre give it some kind of ominous expressiveness. They say that sometimes a single tom-tom strike throughout the entire piece is enough to make a strong impression on the audience. An example of this is the finale of Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony.
In Europe, tam-tam appeared during the French Revolution. After some time, this instrument was taken into the opera orchestra, and since then it has, as a rule, been used in tragic, “fatal” situations. The tam-tam blow signifies death, catastrophe, the presence of magical powers, a curse, an omen and other “out of the ordinary” events. In "Ruslan and Lyudmila" tam-tam sounds at the moment of the abduction of Lyudmila by Chernomor, in Meyerberg's "Robert the Devil" - in the scene of the "resurrection of the nuns", in "Scheherazade" by Rimsky-Korsakov - at the moment when Sinbad's ship crashes on the rocks. Tam-tam beats are also heard in the tragic climax of the first movement of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony.
Claves.
The claves is a percussion instrument of Cuban origin: these are two round sticks, each 15-25 cm long, carved from very hard wood. The performer holds one of them in a special way in his left hand - so that the clenched palm acts as a resonator - and hits it with another stick.
The sound of the clave is sharp, high, loudly clicking, like a xylophone, but without a certain pitch. The pitch of the sound depends on the size of the sticks; Sometimes a symphony orchestra uses two or even three pairs of such sticks, different in size.
Frusta.
Frusta consists of two wooden planks, one of which has a handle, and the second is fixed at the lower end above the handle on a hinge - when swung sharply or with the help of a tight spring, it makes a clap with its free end against the other. As a rule, only individual forte, fortissimo pops, not too often following one after another, are extracted from frust.
Frusta is a percussion instrument that does not have a specific pitch, so its part, like the tambourine part, is not written on a stave, but on a “string”.
Frusta is quite common in modern scores. The third movement of “Lorelei” from Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony begins with two claps on this instrument.
Wood block.
Wood block is a percussion instrument of Chinese origin. Before its appearance in the percussion section of a symphony orchestra, the wood block was very popular in jazz.
A wood block is a small rectangular block of hard wood with a deep, narrow cutout on the front side. The technique of playing the wood block is drumming: the sound is produced by hitting the upper plane of the instrument with snare drum sticks, wooden mallets, and sticks with rubber heads. The resulting sound is sharp, high-pitched, characteristically clicking, and indefinite in pitch.
As a percussion instrument of indefinite pitch, the wood block is notated on a “string” or a combination of rulers.
Temple block, Tartaruga.
Temple block is an instrument of Korean or North Chinese origin, an attribute of the Buddhist cult. The instrument has a round shape, is hollow inside, with a deep cut in the middle (like a laughing mouth), and is made of hard wood.
Like most other “exotic” percussion instruments, the temple block first spread in jazz, from where it entered the symphony orchestra.
The sound of the temple block is darker and deeper than that of the closely related wood block, and has a fairly definite pitch, so that, using a set of temple blocks, you can get melodic phrases on them - for example, S. Slonimsky used these instruments in "Concert buffe".
They play temple blocks by hitting the top cover with sticks with rubber heads, wooden mallets and snare drum sticks.
Sometimes a symphony orchestra uses sets of turtle shells, which are similar in principle to playing template blocks, but sound drier and weaker. Such a set of turtle shells called Tartaruga was used by S. Slonimsky in his “Concert Buff”.
Guiro, reko-reko, sapo.
These instruments are of Latin American origin; they are similar both in their design principle and in the way they are played.
They are made from a segment of bamboo (reco-reco), from a dried pumpkin (guiro), or from another hollow object that serves as a resonator. A series of notches or notches are made on one side of the tool. In some cases, a plate with a corrugated surface is mounted. A special wooden stick is passed along these notches, resulting in a high, sharp sound with a characteristic crackling sound. The most common variety of these related instruments is the guiro. I. Stravinsky was the first to introduce this instrument into the symphony orchestra - in The Rite of Spring. Reco-reco is found in Slonimsky's "Concert-bouffe", and sapo - an instrument similar to reco-reco - is used in the score of "Three Poems of Henri Michaud" by W. Lutoslawski.
Ratchet.
In musical instruments various peoples There are many ratchets of various shapes and devices. In a symphony orchestra, the ratchet is a box that the performer rotates on a handle around a gear wheel. At the same time, an elastic wooden plate, jumping from one tooth to another, produces a characteristic crack.
Maracas, chocalo (tubo), camezo.
All these instruments are of Latin American origin. A maracas is a round or egg-shaped wooden rattle with a handle and filled with shot, grains, pebbles or other bulk materials. These folk instruments are usually made from a coconut or a hollow dried gourd with a natural handle. Maracas are very popular in dance music orchestras and jazz. S. Prokofiev was the first to use this instrument as part of a symphony orchestra ("Dance of the Antillean Girls" from the ballet "Romeo and Juliet", cantata "Alexander Nevsky"). Nowadays, a pair of instruments is usually used - the performer holds them in both hands and, shaking them, produces a sound. Like other percussion instruments without a specific pitch, the maracas is notated on a "string". According to the principle of sound production, maracas are close to chocalos and camezos. These are metal - checkered - or wooden - cameso cylinders, filled, like maracas, with some kind of granular substance. Some models have a side wall covered with a leather membrane. Both cecala and camezo sound louder and sharper than maracas. They are also held with both hands, shaken vertically or horizontally, or rotated.
Kabatsa.
Initially, this instrument of Afro-Brazilian origin was popular in Latin American music orchestras, from where it received its further distribution. Externally, the kabatsa resembles a twice enlarged maracas, covered with a mesh with large beads strung on it. The performer holds the instrument in one hand and either simply hits it with the fingers of the other hand, or with a tangential movement of the palm he scrolls through a grid of beads. In the latter case, a rustling, longer sound appears, reminiscent of the sound of maracas. Slonimsky was one of the first to use kabatsu in the Concert Buff.
Bongs.
This instrument is of Cuban origin. After modernization, bongs began to be widely used in dance music orchestras, jazz and even in works of serious music. Bongs have the following structure: leather is stretched over a wooden cylindrical body (17 to 22 cm high) and secured with a metal hoop (its tension is adjusted from the inside with screws). The metal rim does not rise above the level of the skin: this is what determines such a characteristic playing of bongs with the palms - con le mani or fingers - con le dita. Two bongs with different diameters are usually connected to each other by a common holder. A smaller bong sounds about a third higher than a wider one. The sound of the bong is high, specifically “empty” and changes depending on the place and method of impact. Due to this, on each instrument you can get two different high-pitched sounds: an elongated blow index finger at the edge or large to the center - and lower (somewhere within the major second or third) - from striking with the entire palm or fingertip closer to the center.
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Piano (Italian piano-forte, French piano; German Fortepiano, Hammerklavier; English piano)
The source of sound in a piano is metal strings, which begin to sound when struck by felt-covered wooden hammers, and the hammers are activated by pressing the fingers on the keys.
The first keyboard instruments, known already at the beginning of the 15th century, were the harpsichord and clavichord (clavicembalo in Italian). On the clavichord, the strings were vibrated by metal levers - tangents, on the harpsichord - by crow feathers, and later - by metal hooks. The sound of these instruments was dynamically monotonous and faded quickly.
The first hammer piano, so named because it played both forte and piano sounds, was most likely built by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1709. This new instrument quickly gained recognition and, after many improvements, became the modern concert grand piano. A piano was built for home music playing in 1826.
The piano is widely known as a solo concert instrument. But sometimes it also acts as an ordinary orchestra instrument. Russian composers, starting with Glinka, began to introduce a piano into the orchestra, sometimes along with a harp, to recreate the sonority of the gusli. This is how it is used in Bayan’s songs in Glinka’s “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, in “Sadko” and in Rimsky-Korsakov’s “May Night”. Sometimes the piano reproduces the sound of a bell, as in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov with Rimsky-Korsakov's instrumentation. But it doesn’t always just imitate other timbres. Some composers use it in the orchestra as a decorative instrument, capable of introducing sonority and new colors into the orchestra. Thus, Debussy wrote a piano part for four hands in the symphonic suite “Spring”. Finally, it is sometimes seen as a kind of percussion instrument with a strong, dry tone. The poignant, grotesque scherzo in Shostakovich's 1st symphony is an example of this.
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Harpsichord
Keyboard string musical instrument. A harpsichordist is a musician who performs musical works both on the harpsichord and its varieties. The earliest mention of a harpsichord-type instrument appears in a 1397 source from Padua (Italy), the earliest known image is on an altar at Minden (1425). The harpsichord remained in use as a solo instrument until the end of the 18th century. For a little longer it was used to perform digital bass, to accompany recitatives in operas. OK. 1810 is practically out of use. The revival of the culture of playing the harpsichord began at the turn of the 19th - 20th centuries. The harpsichords of the 15th century have not survived. Judging by the images, these were short tools with a heavy body. Most surviving 16th-century harpsichords were made in Italy, where Venice was the main center of production. A copy of a Flemish harpsichord. They had an 8` register (less often two registers, 8` and 4`), and were distinguished by their grace. Their body was most often made of cypress. The attack on these harpsichords was clearer and the sound more abrupt than that of later Flemish instruments. The most important center of harpsichord production in Northern Europe was Antwerp, where representatives of the Ruckers family worked since 1579. Their harpsichords have longer strings and heavier bodies than Italian instruments. From the 1590s, harpsichords with two manuals were produced in Antwerp. French, English, and German harpsichords of the 17th century combine features of Flemish and Dutch models. French harpsichord Some French two-manual harpsichords with walnut bodies have survived. From the 1690s, harpsichords of the same type as Ruckers instruments were produced in France. Among the French harpsichord masters, the Blanchet dynasty stood out. In 1766, Blanchet's workshop was inherited by Taskin. The most significant English harpsichord manufacturers in the 18th century were the Shudys and the Kirkman family. Their instruments had a plywood-lined oak body and were distinguished by a strong sound with a rich timbre. In 18th-century Germany, the main center of harpsichord production was Hamburg; among those manufactured in this city are instruments with 2` and 16` registers, as well as with 3 manuals. The unusually long harpsichord model was designed by J.D. Dulken, a leading Dutch master of the 18th century. In the 2nd half of the 18th century. The harpsichord began to be replaced by the piano. OK. 1809 The Kirkman company released its last harpsichord. The initiator of the revival of the instrument was A. Dolmech. He built his first harpsichord in 1896 in London and soon opened workshops in Boston, Paris, and Haslemere. Modern harpsichord The production of harpsichords was also launched by the Parisian companies Pleyel and Erard. Pleyel began producing a model of a harpsichord with a metal frame carrying thick, taut strings; Wanda Landowska trained a whole generation of harpsichordists on instruments of this type. Boston masters Frank Hubbard and William Dowd were the first to copy antique harpsichords.
Preview:
Organ (Italian organo, French orgue, German Orgel, English organ)
The keyboard wind instrument - the organ - has been known since ancient times. In ancient organs, air was pumped manually using bellows. In medieval Europe, the organ became an instrument of church worship. It was in the spiritual environment of the 17th century that organ polyphonic art arose, the best representatives of which were Frescobaldi, Bach and Handel.
The organ is a gigantic instrument with many different tones.
“This is a whole orchestra, which in skillful hands can convey everything, express everything,” Balzac wrote about him. Indeed, the range of the organ exceeds the range of all orchestra instruments combined. The organ includes bellows for supplying air, a system of pipes of various designs and sizes (in modern organs the number of pipes reaches 30,000), several manual keyboards and a foot pedal. The largest pipes reach a height of 10 meters or more, the height of the smallest is 8 millimeters. This or that sound color depends on their device.
A set of pipes of a single timbre is called a register. Large cathedral organs have more than a hundred registers: in the organ of Notre Dame Cathedral their number reaches 110. The color of the sounds of individual registers resembles the timbre of a flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, bass clarinet, trumpet, and cello. The richer and more varied the registers, the greater the opportunities the performer receives, because the art of organ playing is the art of good registration, i.e. skillful use of all technical resources of the instrument.
In modern orchestral music (especially theatrical music), the organ was primarily used for sound-visual purposes - where it was necessary to reproduce the church atmosphere. Liszt, for example, in the symphonic poem “The Battle of the Huns,” used the organ to contrast the Christian world with the barbarians.
Preview:
Harp - plucked string musical instrument. It has the shape of a triangle, which consists of: firstly, a resonant box body approximately 1 meter long, expanding downwards; its previous shape was quadrangular, but the current one is rounded on one side; it is equipped with a flat soundboard, usually made of maple wood, in the middle of which, along the length of the body, is attached a narrow and thin strip of hard wood, in which holes are punched for piercing the gut strings; secondly, from the upper part (in the form of a large neck), snake-like curved, attached to the top of the body, forming an acute angle with it; Pegs are attached to this part to strengthen the strings and tune them; thirdly, from a front beam shaped like a column, the purpose of which is to resist the force produced by the strings stretched between the fingerboard and the resonant body. Since the harp already had a significant sound volume (five octaves) in the past, and the room for the strings of the full chromatic scale is not enough, the strings in the harp are stretched only to produce the sounds of the diatonic scale. On a harp without a pedal, you can only play one scale. For chromatic raises in earlier times, the strings had to be shortened by pressing the fingers against the fingerboard; later this pressing began to be done with the help of hooks driven by hand. Such harps turned out to be extremely inconvenient for performers; These shortcomings were largely eliminated by a pedal mechanism invented by Jacob Hochbrucker in 1720. This master attached seven pedals to the harp, acting on conductors that passed through the empty space of the beam to the fingerboard and there brought the hooks into such a position that they, firmly adhering to the strings, they produced chromatic enhancements throughout the entire volume of the instrument.
Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra(from Greek orchestra) - a large group of instrumental musicians. Unlike chamber ensembles, in an orchestra some of its musicians form groups that play in unison, that is, they play the same parts.
The very idea of simultaneous music playing by a group of instrumental performers goes back to ancient times: back in Ancient Egypt small groups of musicians played together at various holidays and funerals.
The word “orchestra” (“orchestra”) comes from the name of the round platform in front of the stage in the ancient Greek theater, which housed the ancient Greek choir, a participant in any tragedy or comedy. During the Renaissance and beyond XVII century, the orchestra was transformed into an orchestra pit and, accordingly, gave its name to the group of musicians housed in it.
There are many different types of orchestra: military orchestra consisting of brass and woodwind instruments, folk instrument orchestras, string orchestras. The largest in composition and richest in its capabilities is the symphony orchestra.
Symphoniccalled an orchestra composed of several heterogeneous groups of instruments - families of strings, winds and percussion. The principle of such unification developed in Europe in XVIII century. Initially, the symphony orchestra included groups of bowed instruments, woodwind and brass instruments, which were joined by a few percussion musical instruments. Subsequently, the composition of each of these groups expanded and diversified. Currently, among a number of varieties of symphony orchestras, it is customary to distinguish between a small and a large symphony orchestra. A small symphony orchestra is an orchestra of predominantly classical composition (playing music of the late 18th - early 19th centuries, or modern stylizations). It consists of 2 flutes (rarely a small flute), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 (rarely 4) horns, sometimes 2 trumpets and timpani, a string group of no more than 20 instruments (5 first and 4 second violins, 4 violas, 3 cellos, 2 double basses). The Big Symphony Orchestra (BSO) includes obligatory trombones in the brass group and can have any composition. Often wooden instruments (flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons) reach up to 5 instruments of each family (sometimes there are more clarinets) and include varieties (small and alto flutes, Cupid oboe and English oboe, small, alto and bass clarinets, contrabassoon). The brass group can include up to 8 horns (including special Wagner tubas), 5 trumpets (including snare, alto, bass), 3-5 trombones (tenor and tenorbass) and tuba. Saxophones are used very often (in a jazz orchestra, all 4 types). The string group reaches 60 or more instruments. There are numerous percussion instruments (although timpani, bells, small and large drums, triangle, cymbals and the Indian tom-tom form their backbone), the harp, piano, and harpsichord are often used.
To illustrate the sound of the orchestra, I will use the recording of the final concert of the YouTube Symphony Orchestra. The concert took place in 2011 in the Australian city of Sydney. It was watched live on television by millions of people around the world. The YouTube Symphony Orchestra is dedicated to fostering a love of music and showcasing the vast creative diversity of humanity.
The concert program included well-known and little-known works by famous and little-known composers.
Here his program:
Hector Berlioz - Roman Carnival - Overture, Op. 9 (featuring Android Jones - digital artist)
Meet Maria Chiossi - Harp
Percy Grainger - Arrival on a Platform Humlet from in a Nutshell - Suite
Johan Sebastian Bach - Toccata in F major for organ (featuring Cameron Carpenter)
Meet Paulo Calligopoulos - Electric Guitar and violin
Alberto Ginastera - Danza del trigo (Wheat Dance) and Danza final (Malambo) from the ballet Estancia (conducted by Ilyich Rivas)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - "Caro" bell"idol mio" - Canon in three voices, K562 (featuring the Sydney Children's Choir and soprano Renee Fleming via video)
Meet Xiomara Mass - Oboe
Benjamin Britten - The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34
William Barton - Kalkadunga (featuring William Barton - Didgeridoo)
Timothy Constable - Suna
Meet Roman Riedel - Trombone
Richard Strauss - Fanfare for the Vienna Philharmonic (featuring Sarah Willis, Horn, Berlin Philharmoniker and conducted by Edwin Outwater)
*PREMIERE* Mason Bates - Mothership (specially composed for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra 2011)
Meet Su Chang - Guzheng
Felix Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64 (Finale) (featuring Stefan Jackiw and conducted by Ilyich Rivas)
Meet Ozgur Baskin - Violin
Colin Jacobsen and Siamak Aghaei - Ascending Bird - Suite for string orchestra (featuring Colin Jacobsen, violin, and Richard Tognetti, violin, and Kseniya Simonova - sand artist)
Meet Stepan Grytsay - Violin
Igor Stravinsky - The Firebird (Infernal Dance - Berceuse - Finale)
*ENCORE* Franz Schubert - Rosamunde (featuring Eugene Izotov - oboe, and Andrew Mariner - clarinet)
The symphony orchestra has been formed over the centuries. Its development for a long time took place in the bowels of opera and church ensembles. Such groups in XV - XVII centuries were small and heterogeneous. They included lutes, viols, flutes and oboes, trombones, harps, and drums. Gradually, bowed string instruments gained a dominant position. Violins took the place of viols with their richer and more melodious sound. Back to top XVIII V. they already reigned supreme in the orchestra. A separate group and wind instruments (flutes, oboes, bassoons) also united. Trumpets and timpani moved from the church orchestra to the symphony. The harpsichord was an indispensable participant in instrumental ensembles.
This composition was typical for J. S. Bach, G. Handel, A. Vivaldi.
From the middle XVIII V. the genres of symphony and instrumental concert. The departure from the polyphonic style led to the desire of composers for timbre diversity and the distinct identification of orchestral voices.
The functions of new tools are changing. The harpsichord, with its weak sound, gradually loses its leading role. Soon composers abandoned it altogether, relying mainly on the string and wind section. By the end XVIII V. The so-called classical composition of the orchestra was formed: about 30 strings, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, 2-3 horns and timpani. Soon the clarinet joined the winds. J. Haydn and W. Mozart wrote for such a composition. This is the orchestra in the early works of L. Beethoven. IN XIX V.
The development of the orchestra proceeded mainly in two directions. On the one hand, increasing in composition, it was enriched with instruments of many types (the great merit of the romantic composers, primarily Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner, is in this), on the other hand, the internal capabilities of the orchestra developed: the sound colors became purer, the texture became clearer, expressive resources are more economical (such is the orchestra of Glinka, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov). The orchestral palette was also significantly enriched by many composers of the late XIX - 1st half of XX V. (R. Strauss, Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, Bartok, Shostakovich, etc.).
A modern symphony orchestra consists of 4 main groups. The foundation of the orchestra is a string group (violins, violas, cellos, double basses). In most cases, strings are the main carriers of the melodic principle in the orchestra. The number of musicians playing strings is approximately 2/3 of the entire ensemble. The group of woodwind instruments includes flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Each of them usually has an independent party. Inferior to bow instruments in timbre richness, dynamic properties and variety of playing techniques, wind instruments have great strength, compact sound, and bright colorful shades. The third group of orchestra instruments is brass (horn, trumpet, trombone, trumpet). They bring new bright colors to the orchestra, enriching its dynamic capabilities, adding power and brilliance to the sound, and also serving as bass and rhythmic support.
All higher value acquire percussion instruments from a symphony orchestra. Their main function is rhythmic. In addition, they create a special sound and noise background, complement and decorate the orchestral palette with color effects. According to the nature of their sound, drums are divided into 2 types: some have a certain pitch (timpani, bells, xylophone, bells, etc.), others do not have a precise pitch (triangle, tambourine, snare and bass drum, cymbals). Of the instruments not included in the main groups, the role of the harp is most significant. Occasionally, composers include celesta, piano, saxophone, organ and other instruments in the orchestra.
You can read more about the instruments of a symphony orchestra - string section, woodwinds, brass and percussion at website.
I can’t ignore another useful site, “Children about Music,” which I discovered while preparing this post. There is no need to be intimidated by the fact that this is a site for children. There are some pretty serious things in it, just told in a simpler, more understandable language. Here link on him. By the way, it also contains a story about a symphony orchestra.
Sources:
Marina Razheva
Synopsis of NOD "Symphony Orchestra"
Lesson notes
« Symphony Orchestra»
for children 5 -6 years old
Prepared: music director
Razheva Marina Anatolyevna
Teykovo 2015
Target: introducing preschoolers to classical music
Tasks. To form in children an aesthetic perception of the world around them.
Introduce to musical culture.
To form the need for the perception of music.
Develop cognitive and creative abilities.
Enrich your vocabulary.
Educational area - "Artistic and aesthetic education"
Form of organization – Team work teacher with children.
Type of children's activity: educational, communicative, musical and artistic.
Materials and equipment: music center for listening to music, children's musical instruments, presentation.
Preliminary work: in music classes, children should become familiar with basic instruments symphony orchestra, their real sound, timbre coloring. Distinguish between groups of instruments: strings, winds, percussion, singles.
Program content.
1. Expand children’s knowledge about the sound characteristics of musical instruments.
2. Cultivate interest and desire to listen to the sound of instruments.
3. Continue to develop skills in playing the DMI (children's musical instruments)
4. Develop children's timbre hearing.
Planned result.
Forming an idea about symphony orchestra.
Strengthening the ability to distinguish the sounds of instruments symphony orchestra.
Take an active part in the game at DMI.
Feel the need to perceive music as it is performed symphony orchestra.
Progress of the lesson.
Children enter the hall and perform the usual set of musical and rhythmic movements, then calmly walk to the chairs.
M. r. greets children by singing "Hello!", author…
M. r. Draws children's attention to the screen, where children see a large group of musicians.
M. r. Guys, what do you see in this photo.
Children's answers.
M. r. Yes it orchestra - group of musicians who perform one piece of music together. Each musician plays his part according to the notes, which is called the score. The scores stand on special stands – consoles.
And now, I want to tell you a riddle. Try to guess it.
He conducts the orchestra,
Brings joy to people.
He just waves his wand,
The music will start playing.
He is not a doctor or a driver.
Who is this? (Conductor)
Children. Conductor.
M. r. To orchestra sounded coherently and harmoniously - it is controlled by the conductor. He faces the musicians. The conductor can force orchestra play fast, and slowly, and quietly, and loudly - whatever you want! But at the same time he does not utter a single word. He only uses his magic baton. In front of the conductor are thick, thick sheet music, in which the parts of all the musicians are written. These notes are called clavier.
The violin is a 4-string bowed instrument, the highest in sound in its family and the most important in orchestra.
The cello is a large violin that is played while sitting. The cello has a rich low sound.
The double bass is the lowest in sound and the largest in size. (up to 2 meters) among the family of bowed string instruments. They play it standing or on a special chair. This is the bass foundation (the basis) Total orchestra.
The flute belongs to the group of woodwind instruments. But modern flutes are very rarely made of wood, more often of metal, sometimes of plastic and glass. The most virtuoso and technically agile instrument in the wind family. The flute is often entrusted orchestral solo.
M. r. Guys, why are instruments called wind instruments?
Children's answers.
M. r. Yes, they really blow. It would be more correct to say that wind instruments sound when air is blown into them.
And now you see and hear a trumpet from a group of brass instruments. The trumpet has a high, clear sound, very suitable for fanfares. Fanfare is used to give signals - solemn or warlike at festive celebrations and military parades.
In front of you is a trombone. The trombone plays more of a bass line than a melodic line. It differs from other brass instruments by the presence of a movable slide, by moving which back and forth the musician changes the sound of the instrument.
Horn - horn. Originally derived from a hunting horn. The horn can be soft and expressive or harsh and raspy.
M. r. Please name the percussion instruments.
Children. Drum, tambourine, maracas, triangle, metallophone, castanets, bells, rattles, bells.
M. r. That's right, guys. There are a lot of percussion instruments, but not all of them can serve symphony orchestra.
Name the tools you see on the slide.
Drums, cymbals, xylophone.
Slide 14,15.
And also, guys, orchestra single instruments are used. And you must find out and name
them correctly.
Children. Piano. Harp.
M. r. Right. This is a concert grand piano and ancient instrument– harp.
Do you guys want to feel like big musicians? orchestra? Then I suggest you take your instruments and play one very beautiful piece of music.
Performed "Rondo in Turkish style"- W. Mozart or
"Naughty Polka"- A. Filippenko.
M. r. Thanks guys. I like it.
What do you guys think, instruments such as the balalaika or saxophone can play orchestra. Which one? The fact is that these tools are part of other orchestras.
Look carefully at these illustrations. Except symphony orchestra there are other types orchestras: brass, folk, pop, jazz. They differ in the composition of instruments and the number of musicians. IN symphony orchestra On average, about 60-70 people, but sometimes 100 or more. The musicians are arranged in a certain order. They are combined into groups of instruments with similar timbres.:
string, woodwind, brass and percussion. Musicians of the same group sit next to each other to hear each other better. And this creates a consistent sound.
And now, I want to invite you to play a game.
Find out the instrument.
Slide 17, 18, 19.
M. r. We had a wonderful time together. Did you like it? What is the name of orchestra, whom we met today? Which instrument did you like? (Children answer one at a time as desired). I have prepared cards for you with a riddle that you will try to solve with your mom or dad and draw the answer. (silhouette on the back - dots).
Please come to me, I want to thank you and say goodbye (children close their eyes, the music director strokes their head)
Throughout its history, thousands and thousands of years, humanity has created musical instruments and combined them in various combinations. But only about four hundred years ago these combinations of instruments developed into a form already close to that of a modern orchestra.
In the old days, when musicians gathered to play, they used whatever instruments were around. If there were three players on the lute, two on the harp and the flute, that's how they played. By the early 16th century, an era known as the Renaissance, the word "ensemble" was used to refer to a group of musicians, sometimes singers, who performed music together or "in ensemble".
Composers of the early Renaissance usually did not specify for which instrument they were writing the part. This meant that the parts could be played on any available instrument. But at the beginning of the 17th century in Italy, the composer Claudio Monteverdi chose which instruments should accompany his opera Orpheus (1607), and precisely indicated for which instruments the parts were written: fifteen viols of various sizes, two violins, four flutes (two large and two medium), two oboes, two cornets (small wooden trumpets), four trumpets, five trombones, a harp, two harpsichords and three small organs.
As seen, " renaissance orchestra" Monteverdi was already similar to what we imagine an orchestra should be like: instruments organized in groups, many bowed string instruments, great variety.
In the next century (until 1700, the time of J.S. Bach), the orchestra developed even more. The family of violins (violin, viola, cello and bass) replaced the viols; in the Baroque orchestra the family of violins was much more representative than the viols in the Renaissance orchestra. Musical leadership in the Baroque orchestra belonged to the keyboard instruments; musicians playing the harpsichord or sometimes the organ acted as leaders. When J. S. Bach worked with an orchestra, he sat at the organ or harpsichord and directed the orchestra from his seat.
In the Baroque era, the musical conductor sometimes led the orchestra while standing, but this was not yet the conducting that we know today. Jean-Baptiste Lully, who was in charge of music at the court of the French king in the 1600s, was used to beating the rhythm for his musicians on the floor with a long pole, but one day he accidentally injured his leg, gangrene developed, and he died!
The following 19th century, the time of Haydn and Beethoven, saw even more profound changes in the orchestra. Bowed string instruments have become more important than ever, while keyboard instruments have faded into obscurity. Composers began to write for a specific musical instrument. This meant knowing the voice of each instrument, understanding which music would sound better and be easier to perform on the chosen instrument. Composers became more free and even adventurous in combining instruments to produce richer and more varied sounds and nuances.
The first violinist (or accompanist) directed the orchestra from his chair, but sometimes he had to give instructions with gestures and, in order to be better visible, he first used an ordinary sheet of white paper rolled into a tube. This led to the development of the modern baton. In the early 1800s, composer-conductors such as Carl Maria von Weber and Felix Mendelssohn pioneered the practice of leading musicians from a central podium in front of the orchestra.
As orchestras became larger and larger, not all musicians could see and follow the accompanist. By the end of the 19th century, the orchestra had reached the size and proportions we know today and even exceeded those of today. Some composers, such as Berlioz, began to compose music only for such huge orchestras.
The design, construction and quality of musical instruments have been constantly improved, created new musical instruments, which found their place in the orchestra, such as piccolo (small flute) and trumpet. Many composers, including Berlioz, Verdi, Wagner, Mahler and Richard Strauss, became conductors. Their experiments with orchestration (the art of distribution musical material between the instruments of the orchestra in order to make the most advantageous use of each instrument) showed the way to the 20th century.
Wagner went even further; he designed and manufactured the bass trumpet ( Wagner trumpet), combining elements of the bugle and trumpet to introduce a new, special sound into his immortal opera "The Ring of the Nibelung". He was the first conductor to turn his back to the audience in order to better control the orchestra. In one of his symphonies Strauss wrote Alpine horn part, wooden folk instrument 12 feet long. Now the Alpine horn is being replaced by a trumpet. Arnold Schoenberg created his work "Songs of Gurrelieder" for an orchestra with 150 instruments.
The 20th century was a century of freedom and new experiments with the orchestra. Conductors became completely individual persons and their own superstars rose among them. Responsibility has increased many times, but so has the recognition of the audience.
The basis of the orchestra was as it was formed in the late 19th century, and composers sometimes added or removed instruments depending on the effect they desired. Sometimes this was an extremely expanded group of percussion instruments or woodwind and brass instruments. But the composition of the orchestra has solidified and remains largely constant: a large group of bowed instruments and small groups of winds, percussion, harps and keyboards.
After all these years it still works!