A little surprise here maybe but...

Puccini is an absolute monster ochestrator. La Boheme is masterful. He is one of the most difficult to apprehend (for me) as far as his entire approach. He has a way of passing things off that is brilliant. Colin Davis the great British conductor has voiced his marvel at Puccini's handling of the orchestra.

Debussy perhaps exemplifies the concept of composition/orchestration as a singular endeavor as much as anyone (Afternoon of a Faun an astonishing example.) No one presented their work in the orchestra any better than that man. A great, great musician.

DC

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How did we manage to leave Vaughn Williams out? (Paul rectified that thankfully - standing up for his fellow countryman I suppose.)

The Lark Ascending is a beautiful piece if music to be sure. Think I'll pull that LP out.

Is it just me or is Vaughn Williams growing in stature? His music is holding up very well and he is as copied as anyone it seems.

In a phone conversation with David Raksin I mentioned to him I thought he sounded like Mahler to which he replied, "A lot of people say Vaughn Williams" which I thought was interesting.

DC

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@PaulR said:

William puts Vaugn Williams in his list next to Holst.

Heavens you're right Paul. Not paying attention. And he lists some dandy symphonies (leaving out the 2nd and 5th however which are also gems.) VW's 5th is being "borrowed from" right and left these days. Gorgeous string writing at the and of it btw. The Klingon theme in Star Trek V is right out of it for sure. The 4th also has very intense writing and orchestration that's found it's way into film.

It seems that film writing behaves so often as the step child of the Classical literature. I must agree that Bernard Herman (as William advocates) is the least derivative although Mr. Goldsmith and North have also been stunningly original -oops - wrong thread.

dave

Prokofiev too!

Good Heavens we left dear Sergei Prokfiev out! "Close Encounters" would not have been the same score had Mr. P. not penned Cinderella all those years before. He is one of the most emulated in orchestral color (and downright music) in Hollywood to be sure.

On the original liner notes to the soundtrack of Close Encounters Spielberg mentions JWilliams instruction to him on "the importance of Russian composers." Also, at a JGoldsmith session I attended (Super Girl) Alexander Courage his orchestrator then said, " For musical development - German composers, for film development - Russian. He explained how the Russians would develop through reorchestration of the same material and the Germans would develop the material itself. Very inciteful.

Evan champions Prokofiev here often.

Dave

[..

OK, I'm going to make a case for Charles Ives, based on the 1 & 2nd Orchestral sets, Central Park in the Dark, The unanswered question and Symphony no4.
I suppose Ives does not immediately spring to mind when we think of the great "orchestrators" and I know recently there's been a fair amount published regarding the "authenticity" of some of his published scores. Also, anyone who's ever played anything by Ives would not say that if fits easily under the fingers etc , or is immediatley comprehensible, but if we judge an orchestrator by her/his capacity to realise and make clear musical ideas, then I think, we'd have to included him with those mentioned above.
I think the list so far has been too conservative and with a few exceptions too grounded european romantic ideas "great" orchestration.

kind regards

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[...

These are interesting responses. I agree that list I made was conservative - it was just something off the top of my head and I knew I was leaving out many. I particularly like the mention of Albert roussel, Oliver Messiaen and Respighi. The Pines of Rome - one of the definitions of orchestration. Also Charles Ives - he created shocking new uses of the orchestra no one had ever even imagined. Especially the idea of "eclectic" use (that you can hear today anywhere, especially in film scores) - in other words having something completely atonal like a sound from another universe and three seconds later an old church hymn or brass band tune. No one had ever expanded the possibilities that far before him.

@Nick said:

OK, I'm going to make a case for Charles Ives, based on the 1 & 2nd Orchestral sets, Central Park in the Dark, The unanswered question and Symphony no4.

Nick,

It seems that Charles Ives transcends the question of "greatest orchestrator" in that he is one of the most unique musical personalities of all time. What tree did this guy spring from? We can trace the roots of Bach, Mozart and the rest (even though their genius is equally unexplainable.) But Ives mature music (his early stuff sounds like Brahms!) is seminal. Not just seminal but radical. So radical that he doesn't fit in to any time period including his own. Stravinsky pointed out that Ives' polyrhythm's were 50 years ahead of their time.

As far as orchestrating his work, he reaches the ideal of a singular creative idea. You don't hear the orchestration of an idea in the traditional sense. You hear the idea presented as a singular whole with many aspects. In this sense he is a master orchestrator to be sure. I can't imagine anyone finding an Ives sketch and "orchestrating" it, which you could do with countless other composers. (I recently mentioned him in another thread btw.)

Gesualdo is the only guy I can think of that is a unique as Ives.

Thanks for bringing him up.

Dave Connor

I couldn't agree more with Respighi and Messiaen; Turrangalila is a fantastic piece.
The point I was trying to make with Ives is that outside of the European traddition here was a composer firmly indebted to it, but forcing a new harmonic and rhythmic language that would enivetably lead to new kind of orchestral writing. I think anyone who has heard "From Hanover Square North..." can not fail to be impressed by the expert handling of huge orchestral forces.

Can I ask if Ives was not a great orchestrator then, today, how can anyone be "great" without conforming to recieved ideas concerning orchestral texture etc ? Who are the great living composers who have moved the art form forward ?

Thanks Dave.

It seems to me he could see tradditions and styles and used them rather than worked within them. In many ways I think he marks the end of that huge orchestral, harmonic and rhythmic development over the previous centrury that Schoenberg "dealt" with. I'm mean it continued, but now, where else is there to go ? How different really are Johan Adams' works (in terms of Orchestration) to Ravel ? Granted I think there are some (Ligeti etc) who in the late 50's pushed the orchestra foward but now, I hear a lot of "new" orchestral music that sounds (in terms of orchestration) old.

In some ways like those crazy Roland digital Harpsichords.

Great discussion, sorry to come in on the end. I enjoy reading others, often very informed, opinions

Kind regards

It's true that Ives used different styles rather than existed within them. That is profoundly different from the past, when composers were "imprisoned" in a sense within the musical thought and language of the time and slowly pushed the boundaries further. It has now reached what must be an endpoint, in the sense that now absolutely anything is possible in music. You can have medieval plain chant followed by white noise and no one will be surprised.

You mentioned Ligetti and that occurred to me also - he is one of the few of the current composers (current though getting rather old) who has actually created some new sounds - the use of microtonalities in the famous Lux Aeterna, Lontano, Atmospheres which interestingly did not mean only dissonance as he had consonances and unisons in those pieces. Other composers, like Schoenberg and many more recent ones, were literally afraid to use consonances because of their terror of being sucked back into tonal thinking. But nowadays, tonality, atonality, serialism, synthesized sound, pure noise - all of it is equal. Nothing is forbidden.

What this means is impossible to judge. How can you have "progression" from this? From infinity? In my own work I don't even think about any of the theoretical approaches. I could never write a thing if I did. I work in a style I know is very old-fashioned in many ways simply because it is engrained in my approach somehow. It is not possible for me or I believe for any composer today to believe he is at the "forefront" of things, and maybe that is a good thing because all of the different styles throughout history have values of their own.

Brilliant post William which rings very true.

@ "PaulR" One of my favourite symphonic suites is actually Lieutenant Kije. Not usually thought of as one of Serge Prokofiev's 'great works' maybe, but orchestrally and thematically something else. [/quote said:

[quote= "PaulR" One of my favourite symphonic suites is actually Lieutenant Kije. Not usually thought of as one of Serge Prokofiev's 'great works' maybe, but orchestrally and thematically something else.

Paul,

I was going to chime in as to how much I like Lieutenant Kije and now I'm not sure if I'm thinking of that or the "Scythian Suite" So I need to listen to Kije (which I think I have.)

Suffice to say Prokofiev is a terriffc composer. I love his piano concertos.

Now log off and get some rest. [:)]

Dave

[...

Ok, I'm going to chime in (I've been busy ... ok AND lazy!)

If you haven't heard PROKOFIEV: SYMPHONY NO. 5, then you've missed out on one of the greatest works in classical repertoire, and my personal pick as the best 4 movement symphony ever written. While working for Basil Poledouris we shared some moments talking in depth about the score while we took a break preparing tracks and parts for STARSHIP TROOPERS. It is also his favorite symphony. He and I simultaneously, awkwardly, said the same thing, "there isn't a single bar without melody in the entire piece."

Caveat: If you want to HEAR this piece, I can really truly honestly tell you that there isn't but one recording that is any good. I am not sure why this is. I own over 5 recordings of it and have listened to more. I am 99% sure I have listened to all the recordings available, so at the very least trust that I am ahead of the pack with regards to knowing what recordings are out there. So I have to say that the others are not even decent performances, let alone decent recordings. It's a very difficult piece, and the power of it is in the conducting and balancing, once the players have mastered their parts. Then you hope for a good hall and nice mic placement. For whatever reason only one recording has done it all right, and all the others have done a less than average job in all categories.

So, the one to listen to is:

JAMES LEVINE conducts the CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA in PROKOFIEV'S SYMPHONIES NO.1 and NO.5

Don't bother listening to NO.1 before NO.5. Conductors like to program it that way because of the extreme contrasts, but that is a purely academic notion in my opinion. It actually detracts from the attention and focus needed towards the listening of the NO.5. Also, if you find yourself daydreaming or losing concentration during listening, PAUSE the CD, and come back to it another time. Every bar in this work is masterful. It'd be a shame to miss a passage anywhere. Especially I notice that PROKOFIEV seems to get more complex, more tasty, more interesting, more colorful, etc as each movement progresses towards each's own end, as if to invigorate the audience and stimulate them into staying focused.

How's that for a chime!

[:)]

Evan Evans