Vienna Symphonic Library Forum
Forum Statistics

196,803 users have contributed to 43,032 threads and 258,448 posts.

In the past 24 hours, we have 2 new thread(s), 18 new post(s) and 91 new user(s).

  1. Home
  2. Orchestration & Composition
  3. Your Music
  4. Study Scores
  • F
    F
    last edited
    last edited

    @vibrato said:

    This is a bit weird...

    but I cant find many places to get full orchestral scores online in the UK.

    Where do you people get your scores from? I am very inspired by this thread and according to plan wish to study scores.....I have found a few sites in the US but nothing proper in the UK....


    Foyles has many (mostly miniature, A5-ish) scores on their third floor, and a modest selection of Dover, Boosey and Hawkes and other A4-ish scores too.

    (Note: Dover has an actual bookshop on Earlham Street in central London, but they do not stock any of their own music scores, so it's not worth visiting unless you want other Dover publications, such as printed clip art.)

    Chappell of Bond Street also have a decent selection of scores and sheet music -- note that they are no longer in Bond Street, just to confuse you.

    As I said in an earlier post, there are also various second-hand bookshops in London that sell scores -- for example, I picked up three last weekend (Wagner, Grieg, Rossini) from one there for £2 each.

    Second-hand bookshops are worth browsing, not just in London but wherever you live, because you often find otherwise unadvertised gems: in a bookshop in Hampton the other month, I found a leather-bound copy of both volumes of Bach's well-tempered piano for £10; and in a bargain bin off Charing Cross Road a while ago I found scores for Mozart's 40th and 41st symphonies that included extensive hand-written conductor's notes and a type-written analysis, all for a few pounds.

    If you don't have any reasonable shops nearby, eBay UK continues to be a good source of cheap scores. And if the works you're interested in are now in the public domain, you can probably get them free, and perfectly legally, from sites like imslp.org.
  • S
    S
    This is the first piece I wrote as an exercise in orchestration. I took a classical score, in this case "Venus" from Holst's The Planets, and analysed it every way I could. I labeled the score with emotions I felt from listening, I broke down the harmonies, and studied every part.

    I then tried to write a piece in the same style. The structure and orchestration are very similar to Venus, but with new themes. So it is kind of a "rip off," but it wouldn't have been a very useful exercise if it wasn't. I'll probably make more of an effort to differentiate next time, if nothing else to have something to add to my reel.

    http://www.jefflaity.com/music/MP3/peaceful.mp3

    Strings are VSL Appasionata Strings, except for the solo strings which is VSL pro edition. The horn solo is WIVI Trial, the rest of the brass, inds and harp is SI. Project SAM Celesta, reverb by GigaPulse VST.

    Sorry about the length, as I said it was mostly an exercise but I'm posting for the heck of it. Next time I'll make more of an effort to make it sound less derivative.
  • B
    B
    Hi, I'm also very much a beginner looking to learn orchestration. Would anyone consider Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain or Dukas' The Sorceror's Apprentice worthy of study. Sections of them sound very much like film music to me (in fact some parts of The Sorceror's Apprentice are very reminiscent of Star Wars).
  • S
    S
    If you like the sound of the piece and want to know how it's done, then any piece is worthy of study. Especially an established piece of repertoire like those.
  • S
    S
    last edited
    last edited

    @vibrato said:

    Hey guys..

    Need some help in getting started with analysing scores. I am fairly new to notation, scoring etc.

    But I think its time for me to dig into some proper scores.

    Can people suggest any study scores (and where to get them if you can)?

    Also some film scores worth looking at - even if just for how its all laid out and for orcehstration of course. I think this is the only way to really learn how its done.

    I know there are John Williams Signature edition scores from Hal Leonard and I found a web site in the US where they are selling quite a few of them.

    Any other scores? Even if its classical. I am hoping these scores are arranged in concert pitch and just how they are recorded - so that I can correct my sight reading and understand how the notated effect is produced aurally.

    Any help will be much appreciated.

    Thanks!

    Best,
    Tanuj.


    Hello Tanuj & all,

    [:)]

    Are you still looking for scores? You might try going here:

    http://www.truespec.com/index.php

    Look to the Browse section on the left side of the screen.

    I hope this is of some help to you.

    Highest regards,

    Steve
  • I
    I
    Hi All,

    How would you rate the scores in Rimsky-Korsakov for one beginning to study orchestration?


    Also, doesn't this text dismiss LVB as a towering genius of composition, but a merely adequate orchestrator? What to make of this perspective?

    A fascinating discussion,

    Best,
    Ian
  • D
    D
    last edited
    last edited

    @Ian McDonald said:

    Also, doesn't this text dismiss LVB as a towering genius of composition, but a merely adequate orchestrator? What to make of this perspective?


    Korsakov refers to a "brilliant" type of orchestration which indeed was the future of the art. He dismisses LvB because he didn't practice that particular approach. The orchestra was expanding and instruments were being improved which allowed for this. However, the new approach also was about a new style of music as well (i.e. Beethoven said what he wanted to say the way he wanted to and his orchestration is not a limited expression but a wonder of the art.) Also the limitations Korsakov refers to are in a few very specific areas thus LvB's string writing for example couldn't have gone out of vogue since they remained the same instruments technically - basically.

    That's why criticsm of Beethoven's orchestration begins and ends with Korsakov and all modern orchestration books are loaded up with examples of LvB. He is as good an orchestrator as ever picked up the pen.
  • W
    W
    Given that Beethoven basically invented orchestration, Rimsky-Korsakov's criticism is an artifact of history not to be taken seriously today. Rimsky was attempting to establish a national distinction for Russian music apart from the dominance of Germanic models and his treatise on orchestration was a part of it. Also, the reason I say that of Beethoven is that he was the first composer to use the orchestra in a way beyond the classical model of Haydn. Mozart did not live long enough to develop it further (though certainly would have and had started to do so in the last symphonies such as the g minor). So Beethoven was the one who created a new expressive use of the instruments - starting with the Eroica, continuing with the 5th and 6th, and ending with the 9th - that is still highly influential either directly or through his countless imitators or successors. Look at how influenced Brahms was - to the extent that his 1st symphony was often called "Beethoven's Tenth." Or the significance upon Mahler's entire conception of orchestral use. All of that filters down to today, even in film music. So the origin of most of what we call "orchestration" is Beethoven.
  • D
    D
    Well said William and I couldn't agree more.
  • P
    P
    last edited
    last edited

    @dpcon said:

    Well said William and I couldn't agree more.


    Ditto
  • I
    I
    Hi William, dpcon,

    Thanks for that - glad to know that that Beethoven's reputation remains untarnished. I thought that calling Beethoven mediocre sounded a bit dodgy, but who am I to argue with RK?

    Any further suggestions on how, as a beginner in orchestration, to contextualize Rimsk-Korsakov's text? Are there better places to start from? Is there anything else about his historical perspective/agenda affect that a student should watch out for?

    Great thread!

    Ian
  • D
    D
    last edited
    last edited

    @Ian McDonald said:

    Any further suggestions on how, as a beginner in orchestration, to contextualize Rimsk-Korsakov's text? Are there better places to start from? Is there anything else about his historical perspective/agenda affect that a student should watch out for?


    All study of music and particularly orchestration is about sound. You will ultimately decide what sound you like and is your thing so-to-speak. So no harm can possibly come to you by finding out how various composers arrived at their sound. In the case of the RK book he is trying to convey a way of thinking or approach to get a certain sound. You can absorb that without strictly adopting it. In fact no doubt you will see how other composers employ a similar or dis-similar approach.

    It's all good if your just getting started. I recommend the Kent Kennan and Samual Adler orchestration books which represent a more balanced historical view of the art.
  • W
    W
    I have to add that despite disagreeing with Rimsky-Korsakov on that point I do think he is a great orchestrator and composer. It is just an example of how composers can lose their objectivity and say wrong things no matter how great they are. Stravinsky was another major example of that. [[:|]]

    My favorite orchestration book is Cecil Forsyth, which is pretty old but I like because he is an extreme British curmudgeon. Examples I remember are his calling the bass a "dangerous rogue elephant" that you should not keep locked up in the basement, and the piano a "mechanical box of hammers and wires" compared to the angelic harp. I don't think many pianists own that book... [[;)]]
  • W
    W

    One other thing is that Rimsky-Korsakov, while a great composer, was also an extreme pedant and tended to do things only his way.  So it is understandable he would have problems with Beethoven's orchestration. However, his pedantry resulted in some bad things - such as the famous "finishing" of Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky.  He basically boiled down the score into something HE would write, and then added stuff that Mussorgsky never would have written.  If you want to hear the real Night on Bald Mountain you have to listen to the Stokowski recording of the original score, which is rather rare.  I have an LP released by Decca in the 70s and it is awesome. But Stokowski, being a maniac himself, went back to the original orchestration. I talked with Gregory Stone (aKA Gregorovich Stanislavski), a Hollywood orchestrator who founded the Reno Philharmonic after he retired, and he said Stokowski stole it from his extensive music library and he had the only authoritative version. But however that may be, Stokowski's is the most accurate version of a masterpiece that was seriously altered and homogenized by the very conservative Rimsky-Korsakov.  Mussorgsky was a complete drunken wretch, and so Rimsky felt he had to "reform" him in order to make him palatable.  But the original "unpalatable" version is by far the best.
  • B
    B

    Good point William. It's a shame Stokowski didn't include this version in Fantasia.
  • W
    W

    Yeah, the version Stokowski did in Fantasia was close to the original, until they cut the ending and replaced it with Ave Maria. It was terrible for Mussorgsky, but of course Fantasia is a great film and it worked in that context. 

    The old days, when Disney was a studio that produced great films instead of disgusting pieces of rotting pablum to be gobbled up by mobs of mindless consumers.
  • M
    M
    last edited
    last edited

    @William said:

    The old days, when Disney was a studio that produced great films instead of disgusting pieces of rotting pablum to be gobbled up by mobs of mindless consumers

     "Digital Babysitting" I calls it, I do.....

     Mahlon
  • S
    S

    Hello to all,

    [:D]

    Further to the subject of scores, here is the link is to The International Music Score Library Project.

    http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

    I hope you find it useful.

    Highest regards,

    Steve 
  • V
    V
    last edited
    last edited

    Hi guys,

    It's totally coincidental but I just read this thread a few hours ago and I just visited James Newton Howard's website where he says:

    "As a child James would have his favorite classical composers that would influence him later on. "Probably my single most favorite composer is Beethoven [photo right]. For me there is a nobility and at the same time this incredible yearning and tenderness and a strength in the music that I just found absolutely irresistible as a child. I still see myself incredibly influenced by it by some of my block harmonies and some of my voicings and melodies and without question, Beethoven and Brahms, for texture and for nobility and strength are my big guys, probably Tchaikovsky for melody. And maybe Ravel and Debussy for color, orchestration."

    I thought you'd like it 😊

    Vincent

  • PaulP Paul moved this topic from Orchestration & Composition on