Scan 550
Grove's dictionary of music and musicians ed. by J. A. Fuller Maitland, 1907
18 lines. Read by computer on 5 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1Charles Louis Beauchamps (1636-1705). The book is curious as showing the degree of elaboration to which the old French dances were brought at the Court of Louis XIV. Feuillet's work was followed by a supplement, containing an interesting collection of old dance-tunes. W. B. S.
3ORCHESTRA (Gr. ὀρχήστρα, i.e. a 'dancing place'; Ital. Orchestra; Germ. Orchester; Fr. Orchestre).
5I. That portion of a theatre or concert-room which is set apart for the accommodation of the instrumental band—in the latter case, of the chorus also.
7The word is of Greek origin, and in classical times denoted an open space, in which dances were performed to the sound of various instruments. This space was situated between the seats for the audience and the κοίλον (from κοίλος, 'concave'), another curvilinear space enclosed for the use of the chorus, immediately in front of the Proscenium (προσκήνιον). In Roman theatres the orchestra was diverted from its original purpose, and filled with seats for the senators; for which reason it was placed at a lower level than its Greek prototype, though it occupied exactly the same situation on the ground-plan of the building.
9In modern theatres the normal position of the orchestra is in front of the stage, but on a level with the floor of the stalls and pit—the parterre of the French opera-houses. The advantages of this arrangement are very great. It permits the sound of the instrumental band to be heard in every part of the house, and effectually prevents it from overpowering the singer, who throws his voice over it from the higher level of the stage. [But many artists, from 1600 onward (see below), have felt that the poetic atmosphere would be much enhanced if the orchestra, with its gesticulating conductor, labouring musicians, and dazzling lights, could be rendered invisible to the audience. This was at last done in the Wagner theatre at Bayreuth, where the reverse arrangement to that of the concert platform was adopted, the players being seated on a series of descending rostra, the descent being towards and partly under the stage. Nothing could be more satisfactory than the result of this plan, but up to the present time (1906) only one new theatre—the Prinz Regenten, at Munich—has followed the example.
11In concert-rooms the orchestra is usually placed at one end of the apartment, at such a height above the level of the floor that the whole figure of a performer standing in front may be visible to a seated audience. In these cases the seats in the orchestra are generally placed in rows, one above another, in the form of the segment of an amphitheatre; while, in order to throw the sound more forcibly into the auditorium, the wall behind is sometimes moulded into a quasi-hemispherical form. (The convexities at the sides of the orchestra at the Queen's Hall—an architectural freak—are doubtless largely to blame for its acoustical defects.) It would be quite feasible, with our modern mechanical appliances, to render the orchestra seats capable of being raised or lowered, so that where a recital, let us say, of a Wagner music-drama was being given the band could be sunk as at Bayreuth, so as to run less risk of overpowering the voices. Some years ago the floor of the orchestra at Covent Garden was considerably lowered, to the great improvement of the effect in modern operas.
13II. Both in England and on the Continent the term orchestra is also applied collectively to the body of instrumental performers officiating at a place of entertainment or on a raised platform in the open air. It is not applied to a body of solo performers nor to the instrumentalists attached to a regiment when these stand upon the ground instead of upon a stage. In these two last cases the word substituted for it is BAND. See vol. i. p. 178.]
15III. In a third sense the term is applied, not only to a body of performers, but to the instruments upon which they play—and with which they are of course, in technical language, identified. Thus we constantly hear of 'an orchestra consisting of thirty stringed instruments, with a full complement of wind.'
17Three hundred years ago the number of orchestral instruments was very small, and so undecided that it was not always possible to say whether a certain instrument was orchestral or not. Lutes and viols of all kinds were indeed in constant use, together with flutes—in the form of the old Flûte à bec—cornets, trumpets, drums, and even Saracenic instruments dating from the time of the Crusades; but there was no rule as to their combination, so that they could scarcely be said to constitute an orchestra at all. For instance, in the 'Ballet comique de la Royne' performed at the Château de Montiers, on the occasion of the marriage of Margaret of Lorraine with the Duc de Joyeuse in 1581, mention is made of hautboys, flutes, cornets, trombones, viole di gamba, lutes, harps, a flageolet—played by Pan—and ten violins, played by as many ballet-dancers in full dress. (See vol. i. pp. 174-7.) Such an array would, at first sight, lead us to expect great things, did we not find that the performers were separated into ten Bands (dix concerts de musique); that the violins were reserved for one particular scene, in which they played alone, five on each side; that in another scene Neptune and his followers were armed with 'lyres, luths, harpes, flustes, et autres instruments'; and that in another Jupiter descended from a golden dome, in which were placed forty musicians, 'avec nouveaux instruments, et differents de precedens.' This alone will be
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.