Orchestras

Orchestras – Quick Guide

Classical Music 1750-1800
Haydn and Mozart are the main composers from this time.
Instruments to listen for:
Strings dominated the texture and they had the tune pretty much all the time as there were loads of them.
Brass instruments were limited because they didn’t have valves so could only play notes that were naturally occurring. So if the music went into a different key with notes that they didn’t have they didn’t play.
Woodwind instruments were used slightly more but usually doubled up the string melody. Sometimes they did get the tune but rarely on their own.

Classical music had a clear simple structure: 4 bar question and 4 bar answer phrase. Everything was very calm and neat.
Classical texture was mainly tune and chords which is called homophonic texture.
Classical music used major and minor keys.
The beat is very obvious and easy to follow.

Symphonies and concertos were popular.
A symphony is made up of four movements which is played by an orchestra. Each movement is like it’s own little piece of music.
A concerto is a three movement work for soloist and orchestra. The soloist stands at the front and the orchestra accompanies them. The concerto usually had cadenzas in them which is where the orchestra stops and the soloist improvises to show how good they are.
Overtures and Suites:
These were written then also. An overture is a one movement piece for orchestra and was written as an introduction to larger works like an opera or ballet.
Classical composers were mad about getting the structure right. Their music usually follows a set plan.
First: written in sonata form
Second: written in ternary or binary form
Third: uses the minuet and trio form
Fourth: uses sonata or variation or rondo form


Late Classical: Beethoven 1800-1830

Beethoven is part classical and part romantic. He added more instruments to the classical orchestra such as cymbals, bass drum, triangle, 3 trombones, piccolo, double bassoon, extra flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon players plus a whole load of new strings to balance everything out. The new instruments didn’t play all the time just every now and again.
The melody moves from section to section sometimes two sections at the same times will be playing against each other.
Beethoven’s work sounds exciting and dramatic. He uses contrasting section so of the orchestra so the brass would be playing against the strings.
There are big variations in the dynamics.
The rhythm of the music drives it forward.
His music has powerful themes: remember the 5th Symphony which goes “da da da DA da da da DA”
Beethoven started to paint pictures with his music and recreate scenes of the countryside.



The Romantic Period 1830-1910

Romantic music describes feelings and told a story. . They told a story by using tone colours which were a birdsong like flute part or a woody clarinet part.
Again the orchestras grew in size up to 70 or more musicians. New instruments were added: piccolo, cor anglais, bass clarinet, double bassoon, sometimes even a saxophone. The tuba, cymbals, tubular bells, piano, harp and also more string players to balance it out.
Romantic orchestras were so big they had to bring in a conductor.

Everyone got to play the tune, before in Classical music the strings nearly always go to play the tune. Brass instruments now had valves and as a result could play tunes. Woodwind and brass sections were treated as separate ensembles within the orchestra, giving them important passages. To fill out the sound in loud wind passages the stings were often given fast scales and arpeggios.
Any instrument could now get a solo.

Romantic tunes sound very emotional and are usually longer than the classical ones. They used lots of chromatic notes which created emotions.

In Romantic music there was now a massive range of dynamics, expression markings, tempo changes, changes in texture.

They developed new structures:
Concert Overture: a one movement piece in sonata form
Program Symphony: a work with several movements based on a story.
Symphonic Poem: a large one movement piece often using one theme.
Incidental Music: this was played between the acts of a play.

Lots of Romantic Composers wrote Nationalist Music which meant they put folk tunes of their home countries into the music.
Romantic Period Composers: Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Liszt, Bizet.


Twentieth Century -1910 onwards

Composers used orchestral instruments in new ways.

The percussion sections were very big in C20th music and the instruments were played in a different way. They used to scrape coins down the side of a cymbal, or used different sticks or brushes, sometimes they played cymbals on top of the timpani. World music instruments were introduced as well such as African drums, bongos, guiros, maracas, congos, claves etc.

The woodwind section used the following techniques:
Flutter tonguing - making a r-r-r sound while blowing
Breathy sounds
Clicking keys or rattling valves
Blowing the reed or mouthpiece separate to the instrument.
Singing at the same time as playing
Pitch bending – the note is just played above or below the proper pitch
Glissando – sliding from one note to the other
Multiphonics –playing 2 notes at the same time.
Using mutes.

The string section used the following techniques:
A mute over the bridge
Vibrato – vibrating the finger to make a wobbly sounding note
Tremolo – moving the bow incredibly fast to make a dramatic sound
Sul ponticello – playing near the bridge to create a squeaky spooky sound
Harmonics – high pitched distant sounding notes
Pizzicato – plucking the strings
Tapping the wood of the instrument

20thCentury (C20th) composers experimented with different sounds, such as tape loops or electronic sounds like typewriters or car horns.

C20th tunes and harmony are dissonant. The tunes instead of being long and flowing like the romantic period they were short disjointed fragments of tune. There are wide leaps which are dissonant.
Sometimes the pieces were bi tonal which meant 2 parts playing at the same time but in different keys. Other pieces were completely atonal which is when there is not main key – the complete opposite of tonal music which is major and minor.
The rhythm is syncopated and irregular. There can also be polyrhythms which is more than one rhythm playing at the same time. The time signature changes frequently too.

Some main styles:
Impressionism – Debussy – blurry, floaty, shimmering music
Twentieth Century nationalism – Aaron Copeland – folk tunes are used
Neoclassicism – Stravinsky (briefly) composers looked back to the classical period and recreated their music in a more modern way
Serialism – Schoenberg – tone rows, a series of 12 notes that were repeated upside down, backwards, etc
Aleatoric music-John Cage - music created by chance
Jazz influence – Gershwin’s rhapsody in blue.