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
  • 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