Treatise on Instrumentation (Dover Books on Music) [Hector Berlioz, Richard Strauss] on *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The most influential. Book Source: Digital Library of India Item : Hector ioned. Berlioz was one of the first composers to deal greatly with orchestration. In this treatise he talks about what the different sounds that instruments make (tone.
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His preference is to give wind melodies to two or more instruments. This effect was unknown to Mozart, Weberand Beethoven. The authority of a hundred old men, be they all agedshould not persuade us to find ugly what is beautiful, nor beautiful what is ugly. There is a common prejudice that large orchestras are noisy.
Then came the turn of modulations. There is also the Full organthe Forteand Brlioz. Even then it would be very difficult to bring together in Paris voices of any quality; at the moment the study of singing there is neither very widespread nor very advanced.
The minimum needed would be fifteen first violins, fourteen seconds, ten violas and twelve cellos, but they should not all be used together in pieces where the accompaniment needs to be very soft. Hence it has not as yet been possible for them to reach the point of the other branches of the art of music. The double or triple repetition of the upper notes in the last two examples is made very easy by using in succession the index finger and the third finger on the same string.
Its task is therefore not to reinforce the double-basses, with which its timbre does not berlikz in any way. No one before had suspected the peculiar affinity between two so very different instruments when used in this way.
The upper notes played fortissimo are excellent for violent and shattering effects, as for example in a storm or in a piece of a ferocious or infernal character. This cost-cutting method is intolerable: It can be seen that in this ensemble of performers choristers do not predominate.
It is extremely valuable in large orchestras of wind instrumdntation but few players decide to take up the instrument. The treatise is illustrated with a wealth of musical examples taken partly from Berlioz himself, but for the most part from the works of previous composers, especially GluckBeethoven and Weberand a few contemporaries, notably Meyerbeer ; a list of these is given elsewhere on this site.
Common terms and phrases Actual pitch Allegro alto trombone Andante aria arpeggios bass clarinet bass drum bass trombone bass tuba Bassi bassoon Beethoven Berlioz better bugle character Chor chords chorus chromatic intervals combined composer Cornet cresc difficult double double-basses effect employed English horn Example executed fifth finger flute four fourth string G-clef Gluck hand harmonics harp high tones Horn in F Hrnr impossible impracticable Including the chromatic instru kettledrums keys Klar Klar.
Stringed instruments are the instrumebtation foundation of any orchestra. Hence its priceless ability to produce a distant sound, the echo of an echo, a sound like twilight.
Treatise on Instrumentation – Wikipedia
It is very characteristic, even when only those two instruments are used, but the impact can be increased by a sharp stroke on the timpani together with a brief chord on the remaining instruments. Harold in Italy1st movement, bar 73 and following; overture to Benvenuto Cellini ; the Roman Carnival overture; the Menuet des Follets from the Damnation of Faust ].
One may mention here that the usual practice in the orchestra is to divide the violins into two groups, first and second, but there is no reason why they should not each be subdivided further into two or three parts, depending on what the composer is trying to achieve.
The notes of the bottom range have a rather poor timbre and the instrument must not be used below the low A. The sounds of the second octave can be very suitable for pieces of a joyful character, and the whole dynamic range can be used. Three trombones poorly used will seem noisy and unbearable, while a moment later, in the same hall, twelve trombones will astonish the public through their noble and powerful harmony.
When it did make its appearance, there was an outcry: This is the case with the stopped notes and the artificial sound of the three horns in E flat in the scherzo of the Eroicaand with the low F sharp of the second horn in D in the scherzo of the Symphony in A. A phrase that would appear tolerable, when performed by violins or the woodwind, becomes flat and intolerably vulgar when emphasised by the incisive, brash and impudent sound of the cornet.
Some great masters, Mozart among them, have not avoided this pitfall. Every time I have heard the organ playing together with the orchestra it seemed to me to produce a dreadful effect; it interfered with the orchestra instead of strengthening it.
Double-bass players who are lazy or who really cannot cope with such difficult parts immediately give up and concentrate on simplifying the passage.
Grand traité d’instrumentation et d’orchestration modernes, Op.10 (Berlioz, Hector)
When used harmonically, it blends very well with the mass of brass instruments. Sticks with sponge heads are the best; they are the most musical and are less noisy, and should be used most of the time.
In a chorus of airy spirits, the composer has used two pianos for four hands. For technical reasons it is not possible to reproduce the vocal examples, but the purely instrumental examples are now almost all available on a page entitled Predecessors and Treatisse. Tied grace notes are also feasible in pizzicato playing. A distinction must be drawn between theatre orchestras and concert orchestras. The normal practice is to write two parts for cornets, often in two different keys.
It is less agile than the ophicleide, but its tone is powerful and its range in the lower part is the most extensive available in the whole orchestra. Since the tone production of the melodium is rather slow, as is the case with the pipe organ, it is more suited for the legato style than any other, and very appropriate for religious music, for gentle and tender melodies in a slow tempo.
The second coach will rehearse inztrumentation the same way the first and second tenors. There is nothing more vulgar, I would even say more monstrous and less designed to blend with the rest of the orchestra than those more or less fast passages written as solos for the middle range of the ophicleide in some modern operas.
Treatise on Instrumentation – Hector Berlioz, Richard Strauss – Google Books
Those of the lower register are particularly suited, especially with held notes, for those coldly threatening effects, and for the instrumentatlon tones of still rage which Weber ingeniously invented. For composers and music lovers it is therefore an bdrlioz of unquestionable usefulness. Nevertheless it is always written in tutti passages without any regard for its tonal character, because it is then submerged in the ensemble and the distinctive quality of its timbre can no longer be identified.
This is trivial, and devoid of pomp and splendour. Slow and gentle melodies, which too often are given to wind instruments, are never better expressed than by a mass of violins.
In the Berluoz of one of my symphonies [the Symphonie Fantastique ], the cor anglais, after repeating an octave lower the phrases of the oboe, like the voice of a young man answering a girl in a pastoral dialogue, then repeats fragments from it at the end of the piece, to the muted accompaniment of four timpani, while the rest of the orchestra remains silent.
The tamtam, or treatse, is only used in compositions of a dirge-like character and for dramatic scenes of the utmost horror.
And yet it would be interesting to try once to make simultaneous use of all the musical resources beriloz can be assembled in Paris, in a work specially written for the occasion. From a poetical point of view, this art is as treztise susceptible of being taught as that of inventing beautiful melodies, fine successions of chords or rhythmic forms that have originality and power.
When combined with timpani rolls in several parts, as in the work I have just mentioned, and with an orchestration that emphasises the note of terror, they suggest the strange and awesome sounds that accompany the great cataclysms of nature.