@dpcon said:

No question as to disagreeing because I would point to Beethoven for anyone who wanted to see great horn writing. I do agree with Adler who uses LvB 6th as his second example. Kennan sighting the horn in the 5th as dramatic and arresting. Piston sighting the Pno Cto 5 saying the natural horn, with all it's limitations had a vital and lasting influence on melody and harmony. This style can be heard in Goldsmith's writing in Patton (my favorite rookie) so I don't understand any impractical or errant influence upon a student.

Well let me remind you of a famous example then. Beethoven 5th Symphony, 1st movement, Recapitulation of the 2nd subject. The Horns play the first 4 notes and the Bassoons play the next 2. Obviously, this is because the notes weren't available to the Horns for the whole phrase. Now let's transfer that to a sample rendition. OK, a good musician would naturally make the volume of the Bassoons match the Horns and thereby get an incorrect view of the relative dynamic ranges of these instruments.

My point is that unlike William (pointing a gnarled finger...!), I think that studying the imitators (poor Tchaikovsky) is often better than studying the Masters, for a view of the safest way to do things. When the knowledge of what is correct has been assimilated, then it is the time to look at how the innovators break the rules, and why it works.

DG

Daryl,
I'm gonna sound like a heretic here, but i like the horn/bassoon transition, without reinforcing the bassoons. I always thought the modern propensity for doubling this part missed the point.
I'm going with Dave on the great horn parts (and Brass). The beginning of the last movement of the fifth (including the simple build up) gets me in the loins every time. What a great way to start anything. And let's not forget the fear Beethoven still instills in Horn players, with the sections in the seventh.

You made a good point about the limitations of the instrument though. And horns in particular. But i wonder if we've gained anything playing Beethoven on a chromatic instrument, versus the skill required to play in the harmonic scale with manual slide changes. I wonder if the modern horn is too....'fat' in sound to play as the composer heard it. And maybe this relates to the horn/bassoon passage you wrote of. Should it be, in fact, the reverse of modern expectations? A thinner sounding horn would create a better balance with the bassoon?

Still, what do i know!

Regards,

Alex.

@DG said:

Well let me remind you of a famous example then. Beethoven 5th Symphony, 1st movement, Recapitulation of the 2nd subject. The Horns play the first 4 notes and the Bassoons play the next 2. Obviously, this is because the notes weren't available to the Horns for the whole phrase. DG

Actually the bassoons play the entire phrase with the horns in on the sfz (not intending to quibble here) and yes it's famous and due to the limitations of the day. Many conductors (since the valve horn arrived) simply have the horns play the whole phrase. But this hardly negates the myriad of treasures in the piece to be studied and in fact it should be a joy to the student to learn such things (it was to me when my conducting teacher pointed this passage out to me 25 years ago.)

Speaking of the 5th: How about the two clarinets doubling the violins on the most famous theme in the history of music? (1st mvt., bar 1 meas 1.) You don't really hear them per se but they're there - why? Or the entire strings distribution with the basses in unison at pitch with the cellos? Burning! And so the wonderful journey begins. So this is why I cannot recommend LvB fast enough to any student.

@hermitage59 said:

You made a good point about the limitations of the instrument though. And horns in particular. But i wonder if we've gained anything playing Beethoven on a chromatic instrument, versus the skill required to play in the harmonic scale with manual slide changes. I wonder if the modern horn is too....'fat' in sound to play as the composer heard it. And maybe this relates to the horn/bassoon passage you wrote of. Should it be, in fact, the reverse of modern expectations? A thinner sounding horn would create a better balance with the bassoon?

Still, what do i know!

Regards,

Alex.

Alex you are correct about a thinner sounding horn for Beethoven, and this is exactly my point. His orchestration works perfectly for the instruments of the day. The modern student is not writing for those instruments, so this has to be taken into consideration.

DG

@dpcon said:

Speaking of the 5th: How about the two clarinets doubling the violins on the most famous theme in the history of music? (1st mvt., bar 1 meas 1.) You don't really hear them per se but they're there - why? Or the entire strings distribution with the basses in unison at pitch with the cellos? Burning! And so the wonderful journey begins. So this is why I cannot recommend LvB fast enough to any student.

This is my whole point. What Beethoven heard bears very little resemblance to the performance that you would get with the VSL sample library, so I think that it should be studied when one has a better grasp of basic orchestration. You have to have a point of reference; I just don't think that Beethoven, performed with modern instruments, is the correct one for a first port of call.

Now look, I've spent far too much time typing about all this, when I should be programming Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty. [:D]

DG

@DG said:

Now look, I've spent far too much time typing about all this, when I should be programming Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty. [:D] DG

Well I'll sleep on all this but there won't be anything like a sleeping beauty involved [[;)]]

Cheers DG

Very proud indeed William. I in fact still have the 5th opened here and am looking at the twelve staffs at bar one. This is exactly why I would recommend the grand master as it is very easy to look at. Indeed at bar 18 I am already intrigued at the orchestration which shows everyone in to punctuate the half cadence. The distribution here is brilliant with oboes and bassoons married to the vlns and celli but clarinets curiously not with the violas (they have their own figure.) Flutes are 8va the oboes but all this changes on the quarter notes to bring out the tune and harmony to best effect. (I have now been absorbed in these four measure for at least 15 minutes.)
One only need to point out that the brass writing is idiomatic to the period and see how well they are punching through the texture in their ranges at forte and etc., etc.

I deleted the last response I had to DG's desecration of all human values, because my hands were shaking too hard at the keyboard to be able to type legibly. Also, the foam dripping from my mouth was beginning to short out my computer.

If you want scores for analysis, consider getting 'The New Anthology of Music' by Julia Winterson, ISBN 1901507033. It has over 60 works in full score, including cues from 'On the Waterfront', 'Planet of the Apes' and 'ET', as well as classical, vocal, ethnic, jazz and pop. There is also an accompanying multi-CD set which has (almost) every piece.

If you don't have it, I strongly recommend the Adler book and CD combination; there is also a student workbook with lots of listening, orchestrating and comprehension exercises. (Note that, if you want the answers, you have to write to the publishers and convince then you're not actually a music student trying to cheat.)

If you want a handy thesaurus of modern scoring techniques for film, I suggest getting to know the following works, all of which have both multiple recorded versions and easily-available scores:

[list:d396d4b024]The Planets by Holst
Romeo and Juliet by Prokofiev
The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky
Second Symphony by Sibelius
Sixth Symphony by Vaughan Williams
Noctures by Debussy[/list:u:d396d4b024]

Also consider almost any symphonic or film score by Shostakovich, Lieutenant Kije, Alexander Nevsky and Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev.

If you want printed scores, Dover do decent large-sized reprints that easily tolerate being annotated without obscuring the score. Here are a few I have within arms length, with ISBNs:

[list:d396d4b024]048623861X Tchaikovsky's 4th, 5th and 6th Symphonies
0486260348 Beethoven's 5th, 6th and 7th Symphonies
048624749X Dvorak's 8th and 9th ('From the new world') Symphonies
0486244415 Debussy's Noctures, La Mer and Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune
0486247341 Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade[/list:u:d396d4b024]

You can also pick up lots of fairly cheap, good-condition scores by Eulenberg or Boosey & Hawkes on eBay.

If you don't mind printing your own, you can download scads of public-domain scores from the International Music Score Library Project.

You can also get some scores by Aaron Copland from the Library of Congress's web site.

Just look at Beethoven's 3rd, 5th and 9th. Debussy's La Mer, Jeux and Images, Mahler's 2nd, 6th and 9th, and the Tchaikovsky 6th.

You will learn everything there is to know about orchestration.

@William said:

I deleted the last response I had to DG's desecration of all human values, because my hands were shaking too hard at the keyboard to be able to type legibly. Also, the foam dripping from my mouth was beginning to short out my computer.

Spoilsport. [:D]

DG

Daphnis et Chloe (Ravel)
Senssemaya (Revueltas)
The Strauss tone poems

@magates said:

Daphnis et Chloe (Ravel)
Senssemaya (Revueltas)
The Strauss tone poems

Oh my gosh yes indeed!!

For Strauss, I'd have to include his operas as well: some of THE most brilliant orchestrations I've ever seen.

Also worth mentioning are Respighi's orchestral transcriptions of the works of Bach and Rachmaninoff. Purists may balk, but studying the manner in which he exploded these composers' keyboard works into full orchestral scores is beyond edifying. These are also great lessons in scoring for quadruple winds.

@JWL said:

Also worth mentioning are Respighi's orchestral transcriptions of the works of Bach and Rachmaninoff. Purists may balk, but studying the manner in which he exploded these composers' keyboard works into full orchestral scores is beyond edifying. These are also great lessons in scoring for quadruple winds.

From piano to orchestra, don't forget Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition'.

Arguably more useful for analysis (because they strip the harmony to its bare essentials), there are Liszt's piano reductions of all of Beethoven's symphonies.

FCW, great posts. [:)] I want every one of those scores. But many are tough to find in the US for some reason. Seaching Google and Amazon for the Prokofiev Romeo & Juliet and Shostachovich Symphony #5 has been turning up snake eyes. The Julia Winterson book is also unavailable in the US. Does anyone have a good online source for scores, besides the Dover scores available from Amazon? I'll keep watching eBay, the Shostakovich came up yesterday but seemed expensive to me for a used copy.

One thing nobody here has mentioned so far is how do you learn from the scores? - orchestration is easier to pick up, but harmonic structure and harmonic rhythm not so perhaps. What I've found frustrating with books on harmony is how often examples are illustrated which do simply that: they just illustrate one chord followed by another and by another. This works, so does this, so does this etc etc. Without a teacher it's very hard to discuss anything!

@Another User said:

Does anyone have a good online source for scores, besides the Dover scores available from Amazon? I'll keep watching eBay, the Shostakovich came up yesterday but seemed expensive to me for a used copy.

If you use an RSS reader, you can use it to keep an eye on eBay for you.

Do some searches that are likely to find what you want, even if there's nothing suitable there at present. You'll find that you can subscribe to each of those searches using RSS, and that means that whenever new items show up in those searches, they'll appear in the newsfeed in your RSS reader. This makes it more likely you'll spot something as it goes by without having to visit eBay all the time.

Good ideas. I just discovered the eBay RSS feed. Anyone know of used bookshops in LA, CA that sell scores? I occasionally see them pop up at the used bookstores on Brand blvd in Glendale. With two major music schools in LA (USC, UCLA) and so many starving composers, there must be used scores out there. [:)]

Patelson's in NYC is also a great shop for scores, but you pay full price of course.

The IMSLP site also has piano reductions, which can be useful for studying the harmonic devices in these works.

I just bought a bunch of the scores I was looking for cheap on eBay. [:)]

As far as what to do with them, here's how I've been taught:

1. Find a section you want to study. There might be a passage in a score that reminds you of a film, whatever.
2. Get some "short score" paper to reduce the score and transpose it to concert pitch. This should be the same short score you normally use, whether it's 6 staves or 12.
3. Figure out the different sectons of the arrangement: melody, countermelody, pad, etc.
4. Look at the dynamic markings of each part to learn dynamic balance
5. To really learn it backwards and forwards, record the excerpt into your sequencer.
6. Keep your marked-up short score in a library. Label it "soaring," "romantic," whatever you take away from it.

I was looking at some scores for the last two nights, and I think I have a new plan for study:

1. Find a movement that I want to learn from. I'm starting with not-so-dense passages at first, so I chose "Venus" from Holst's Planets.
2. Play the movement al the way through while trying to follow along with the score
3. Play again, but this time stop playback every few measures to look at what's going on. Label sections of the score with the imagery I feel, "Quiet forest light," "Magic opening," "Go to sleep, little girl."
4. Go through the score again, this time without playback. Break down the harmonic progressions of the sections (Key, chords, etc.).
5. Write a short piece using the orchestration and harmonic devices form the score. It should not sound like a "rip off" to the listener, but should use similar orchestration devices. This seems like a real-world application of how to use scores to improve a film score.

I'm mid-way through step 4 on Venus. [[:)]]

My big pile of scores arrived today: Dvorak Symph #9, Shostakovich Symph #5, Prokoffiev Romeo & Juliet, Stravinsky Firebird and Strauss Tone Poems (Don Juan, Tod Und Verklarung, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel) With the ones I had already (Rite of Spring, ET Adventures on Earth, etc.), I should stay busy for a while. [[:)]] I'm already thinking I'll need Appasionata Strings to bring these sounds to life.