The complete idiot's guide to classical music (11 page)

Few composers have taken the parallel between sound and color so literally, but virtually all use instrumental and vocal timbres to evoke a mood, spirit, or emotion. And more generalized “light shows,” with large screen projections added to a performance, have helped illuminate the essence, if not the specifics, of musical works.

Each era of music is identified with particular forms and structural guidelines. The baroque suite contains certain stylized dances and Mozart sonatas have a recognizable shape (opening theme, second theme, development of both melodies, recapitulation of one or both of them); even Beethoven, ready to break with tradition at the drop of a baton, followed the prescribed four movement form in his symphonies. Adherence to such prescribed structures may seem too inherently limiting, but the genius of the great composers ensured ongoing creativity, as they were pouring exciting new wines into those familiar old bottles.

New forms came into being with the romantic era: The nocturne was pioneered by the Irish composer John Field, but elevated to never-eclipsed heights of beauty and inspiration when Chopin got hold of the form. Liszt developed the symphonic poem, fusing music and literature; Tchaikovsky broadened the musical scope of the ballet, with his full-length masterpieces
The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake,
and
The Nutcracker
; Wagner took the opera, with its set piece arias and ensemble numbers, and turned it into expansive music drama; in our own country, Charles Ives turned barn dances and hymn tunes into classical sonatas and symphonies; and John Cage blew form and structure out of the water altogether with his “4' 33”, a piece where the pianist is instructed to sit at the keyboard in silence for four minutes and 33 seconds. (The piece was later transcribed for other instruments, so five players came out and sat there for the required duration.)

Repetition and contrast are key words in describing musical structure. Repetition helps the listener keep track of the musical progress; it’s like the windows in a house, the milestones on the road, it helps us keep our musical bearings. Sometimes the repetition can be exact; more often the theme or rhythmic motif is varied, shifted from key to key or major to minor, played by different instruments, or presented with different harmonies. Think of the familiar opening motif of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony: You’ll hear it again and again in the course of the piece, each time in a newly compelling incarnation.

 

• Rhythm propels the music forward.
  
 

• Melody is the tune.
  
 

• Harmony is the simultaneous sounding of two or more notes.
  
 

• Scales can be in several different keys.
  

Chapter 6
 
What Are the Instrumental Sounds of Music?

 

• The four families of orchestral instruments
  
 

• Instrumental color
  
 

• Dynamic levels
  
 

• Non-orchestral instruments
  

Technology moves so quickly, and is so pervasive, that we quickly lose sight of what earlier generations took for granted. Most kids today would stare at you blankly if you asked them to prepare a paper on a Smith-Corona typewriter, with a carbon copy or two; most adults would have a similarly difficult time imagining life without a pocketful of credit cards. Evolution came about a bit more slowly in music, but we similarly have become so used to the sound of modern instruments, so accustomed to their more accurate pitch and greater virtuosic possibilities, that it can be unsettling to encounter performances on such ancestors of the oboe, trombone, and piano as the shawm, sackbut, and clavichords.

When the so-called “original instrument” or “early music” movement began a few decades ago, using those obscure contraptions was often a convenient excuse for playing out of tune with all sorts of scrapings, squawkings, and screechings tolerated in the name of authenticity. Gradually, though, true virtuosos on the older instruments arrived on the scene, proving that historical accuracy and high musicianship could indeed walk hand in hand.

While the complex texture of Bach’s orchestral pieces make it seem as if he had a large orchestra at his disposal, he was usually delighted if the court could round up a presentable 18-member ensemble. When Haydn was writing all those symphonies for Prince Esterhazy, he had an orchestra of merely 19 players; it was only when he first visited London, in 1790, that he found an orchestra of double that size.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
Large groups could be called in for special occasions, of course; when Handel conducted his Royal Fireworks Music in London in 1749, there were 3 sets of timpani, 6 trumpets, 9 horns, 12 bassoons, and no less than 24 oboes. They say there was such a crush of people trying to get to the first performance that London Bridge was tied up for three hours.

Today, of course, an orchestra of 40 players barely makes it into the symphonic ranks; most orchestras have 70 or 80 members, and the major ones have closer to 100. Unless, of course, they’re playing Berlioz or Mahler, in which case they have to import additional musicians. Berlioz wanted an orchestra of 200 for his
Romeo and Juliet
, which is probably why nobody plays it much any more.

The timbre or tone of each instrument is different, and further variations in sound quality are possible in the hands (or mouth) of a skilled player. Some sounds seem to convey their own emotional or descriptive content: the agile flute is often used to portray twittering birds or cascading streams; skeletons rattle their bones on the xylophone; and romance often blossoms to the warm sounds of the cello.

The piano keyboard is arranged so that you can depress as many notes as you have fingers. (That wasn’t enough for Henry Cowell, who invented “tone clusters” that you play with your entire forearm.) Sonorous chords can be played by one hand, while the other races up and down in swirling melodic figurations. Violins and cellos have four strings, so they too can produce chords, and experts on keyboard-type percussion instruments, like the xylophone and marimba, often play four notes at a time (holding two mallets in each hand).

Most other percussion instruments concentrate on one note at a time. The cymbals crash; the triangle tinkles (so to speak); the bass drum pounds out the beat; and the gong can be used for anything exotic. Wind and brass instruments can play only one note at a time, but here again, technology has rushed to the rescue with something called multiphonics, a special way of fingering the instrument that allows a skilled player to produce two tones at once.

Needless to say, synthesizers can produce as many simultaneous sounds as the programmer puts into them, but it seems unlikely that they’ll replace the Los Angeles Philharmonic or Boston Symphony Orchestra any time soon.

Just as each instrument has its own special sound, varying combinations of instruments produce distinctive colors that are called into being by the composer, then modified by the conductor. Adding a single trumpet to a body of strings produces a sonic texture totally different from the one you hear if that same trumpet is meshed within an ensemble of other brass and wind instruments. When a conductor signals the double basses to play with more vigor, he is trying to balance the orchestral sound, to ensure that the sonic essence of the piece is being presented in proper equilibrium.

The amount of sound any (unamplified) instrument can produce is a factor both of its construction—a guitar, obviously, cannot play as loudly as a trumpet—and the skill of the player in maximizing its inherent sonic spectrum. Generally speaking, the harder you pluck a string, hit a key, or blow into a tube, the louder the tone will be, but there are extra devices to cut down on the amount of sound being produced: mutes that fit into the bell of trumpets or tubas, or are placed across the strings of violins and violas. Even the pianist has a “soft pedal” to accomplish the same effect at the keyboard.

 
Important Things to Know
The four sections of the orchestra and the individual instruments within them create the dynamics of an orchestral performance. In one section of a piece, the composer may call for the brasses to play full-strength, while the percussion provides a soft, steady underpinning. In another section, he may want the violas to carry a forceful theme, while the flutes gently comment on it from above or vice versa. The composer’s intent is then filtered through the conductor’s judgment, and the players’ ability to carry out his sonic vision.

Just as most of us can easily distinguish one color from the next, people with perfect pitch can recognize any note that is being played or sung. Pitch simply refers to the relative highness or lowness of a tone; acoustically, it is determined by the frequency of vibrations of that given note. In the orchestra, the highest string sounds are produced by the violins, the lowest by the double basses; the piccolos are the altitude champs of the woodwinds, the bassoons (or contrabassoon, which is even deeper) their lowest-lives; amongst the brasses, it’s the trumpet on top, the tuba down below. And handily outranging them all, with 88 notes and more than seven octaves, is the piano.

With the introduction of electronic instruments in the 20th century, it can be argued that there are more than four families of orchestral instruments, and we can sit here all night trying to figure out where to fit keyboards. For instance, is the piano a percussion instrument, because you strike the keys, or a string instrument, because that’s what produces the sound? (Some experts call it a percussion instrument while others take no chances and put the piano firmly into both categories.)

By the same token, we can well make the point that there are only three families, because there are only three non-vocal ways of making sounds: You can vibrate a string (violin or harp), vibrate the air within a hollow tube (flute or trumpet), or vibrate a solid object (xylophone or drum). So as not to complicate our life more than necessary, though, we’ll stay with the usual designation of four basic orchestral classifications: strings, winds, brass, and percussion.

Strings have been prime players on the orchestral scene since the days when the concert hall was a palace ballroom and any audience member below the rank of earl or duchess was highly suspect. Basically, the strings are gentler-sounding instruments than their relatives in the other sections, which is why orchestras contain so many of them and why they sit right up front. Since composers love to write four simultaneous lines for strings (that’s why there are so many string quartets), the violins are divided into firsts and seconds, the firsts usually playing the higher and more difficult parts, though there are no guarantees. The violas, slightly bigger and lower than the frisky fiddles, are in the middle, with the cellos and basses providing the deepest string sounds.

Though the term “string instrument” usually conjures up the image of bowed violins or cellos, there are many plucked instruments as well. The guitar, mandolin, and lute are occasional visitors to the symphony orchestra, and a more regular member of the family is the stringiest instrument of them all—the harp, with 47 (count ’em!) strings, not to mention seven foot pedals to move its pitches up or down.

Although the instruments in the winds section are now mostly (in some cases entirely) metal, they used to be made of wood and you blew through them, so the name woodwinds has stuck. Basically, there are three types: the kind where you blow across a hole, as we used to do with Coke bottles as a kid (flutes, piccolos); those where you blow into a mouthpiece containing a vibrating reed (clarinets); and those where you blow between two reeds fastened together (oboes, bassoons). The instruments in the last group, for obvious reasons, are called double-reeds. A reed is a vibrating strip of thin cane or metal, used to set the air-column vibrating within an instrument. A reed can vibrate freely, as in a harmonica; up against a hard surface, as in a clarinet, where the reed is strapped to the mouthpiece; or against another reed, as in an oboe or bassoon. We’ll tell you more about those blowhard types in Chapter 7. We promise.

The brass instruments have been more consistent in their construction. Back in medieval days, they were made of metal and still are today, although all sorts of other alloys are now added, both to improve sound and cut the costs. Brasses have traditionally had a military flair, going back to the days when Joshua’s trumpet made the Jericho walls come tumbling down. In ancient days, trumpets were great long things (the Tibetans still use a kind of trumpet that is 16 feet long; it’s called, if you’ll pardon the expression, dung), but eventually somebody figured out that if you curved some of the tubing into a sort of S-shape, you could carry it around without breaking your back. Eventually, valves were added, making nimble passage work far easier to accomplish.