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Musical Courier 1903-02-04: Vol 46 Iss 1193, 1903
34 lines. Read by computer on 22 September 2026. Printed page 8. See the scan on archive.org.
1THE MODERN ORCHESTRA.
3LONDON, JANUARY 25, 1903.
5In my previous article on this topic a few sentences may lead some readers to suppose me strongly in favor of all our brilliant young men setting to work on symphonic poems after the Richard Strauss model, and of their mastering and resting content with the orchestra as at present constituted. As a matter of fact, all I meant was this: as they certainly will try to play the Strauss game, they might as well learn to play it properly. After Purcell's time all our composers have been imitators, and they have always failed for want of technic.
7The crowds of musical doctors who tried to write Handel oratorios came to grief because they could not build up a Handel chorus—could not so much as write a respectable fugue. The fumbling fingers of the schoolboy, the untrained mental fibre, are seen clearly enough in every bar. The wishy washy imitators of Mendelssohn failed for want of technic. The only Englishman for a long time who has had a technic—a small one, it is true, but still a real technic—was Sterndale Bennett, who was not nearly so much of an imitator as is generally supposed. Sterndale Bennett lacked the strength, the emotional force, to be a big man; he was a small man, a miniaturist, a minor lyric poet; but what he set out to do he knew how to do, and we can always hear a few of his little things with pleasure, just as we can read little lyrics with pleasure or admire a miniature. Sterndale Bennett studied abroad; and the only Englishmen I know with a thorough command of the technic of ultra modern music, George Marshall Hall and Fritz Delius, also studied abroad. Marshall Hall is sometimes claimed for the Royal College. He was there three months. Elgar I cannot admit to be abreast of the time, either in his ideas or in the execution of them. Fancy a man being inspired by our miserable, stockbroking South African War to write his most popular work! Of all the disastrous incidents of that war the production of "Pomp and Circumstance" was the most cruel. I do not mean to say that if a man has not the stuff in him he will get it by studying in Berlin or Leipsic. Stanford studied at Leipsic; and we need only watch him trying to mouth a symphony in the Brahms manner to realize that he can't do it—the perfect mastery of notes is not there. Yet every day that passes, every new piece of English music I hear, more firmly convinces me that we English can only become even passable imitators by living for a few years out of this our kingdom of dullness and inertia. If we dare hope to do something original so much the better; if we are to remain imitators, second hand men, old clothes men, let us carry on the trade in a workmanlike, businesslike manner, and cease to be a laughing stock to the rest of the world.
9So much for that point. Now for the other. It is, of course, absolutely necessary for the composer to master the orchestra, to acquire the trick of imagining his music as it will sound on the orchestra as it exists, to learn to place the notes so as to produce the precise effects he has imagined. But is there any reason why the orchestra should always remain what it now is? None in the world. Anyone who fancies the orchestra—even the orchestra of the later Wagner and the orchestra of Strauss—to be a perfect machine is, indeed, in a very bad way. It is a very imperfect machine. I do not propose to write a history of the orchestra, but I recommend those who want to know why the orchestra is not perfect, why it is not a fixed, unalterable, definite thing, to get hold of a trustworthy musical dictionary and note the constituent instruments and proportions of the orchestra written for by Monteverde, Handel, Bach, Gluck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner and Richard Strauss. Monteverde's orchestra seems to our eyes merely grotesque, and goodness knows what it would sound like to our ears if it could be reconstructed. We can only vaguely imagine. Even Bach and Handel stand far away from us, and the smallest band that is big enough for Strauss' "Heldenleben" is three times the size of the thing needed for a Mozart symphony. The orchestra has grown in fantastic ways since it was invented; there is, I repeat, no reason why it should remain what it is now. In fact, I may well ask, What is it now? It varies in every country, in every concert hall and opera house. There is every reason why, whatever it is now, it should not remain as it is. It is not only variable, utterly uncertain; it is also abominably incomplete. We in London used to hear the first act of the "Walküre," the "Funeral March" from the "Götterdämmerung," and dozens of other things, done under Richter with only one tuba, and that a bass; the other tuba parts were faked by means of the horns and trombones. Today extra instruments have to be hired by Mr. Newman, by the Philharmonic, by the Glasgow and Manchester orchestras, before Strauss or even Tschaikowsky can be played. Nor in this matter are we so fearfully behind the German and French bands. I sometimes wonder how Spohr managed when he produced "Tannhäuser" at Cassel more than half a century ago. I don't wonder how they manage with later works in Paris, at Rouen, Brussels, at Hamburg and Frankfort—I know the conductors hire extra instruments when they can, and fake when they can't. And not only have conductors to fake in playing works already written—composers have to fake in writing new ones. At its best the orchestra is imperfect. In the Chord article to which I have already referred I pointed out its main defects. Some of the groups are not complete and have to be eked out by instruments drawn from other groups, a process that unavoidably makes the tone muddy, and the absurd four stringed bass going down no further than the E and the equally absurd viola with its empty bottom and middle notes still hold their own.
11Here is my ideal orchestra as I planned it in the pages of the Chord:
13FLUTE GROUP—One piccolo, two ordinary flutes, one alto flute, one tenor flute and one bass flute.
15OBOE GROUP—Two ordinary oboes, one cor anglais, or two, two or three bassoons and one double bassoon.
17CLARINET GROUP—Two clarinets, one corno di bassetto, one bass clarinet and one pedal clarinet.
19HORNS—Four, six or eight, as many as may be required.
21TRUMPETS—Four, six or eight, as many as may be required.
23TROMBONES—Four, six or eight, as many as may be required.
25TUBAS—Six at least.
27STRINGS—Sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, ten violas, tuned C G D A, as at present; ten large tenors, tuned just an octave below the violins; ten 'cellos, ten six stringed basses, tuned C E A D G C, with frets to enable the players to keep in tune.
29I omit the usual drums, cymbals, &c., and the instruments required only for special effects. Nor do I wish to repeat my old essay by arguing as to the advantages such an orchestra would have over anything now in existence. I assume that it is a desirable thing; the question is, How shall we make ourselves happy by getting it?
31In Germany the task will be difficult, mainly for two reasons. First, orchestras are established institutions in Germany. The number of players in each is fixed; the salary and retiring pension of each player is fixed; and we can easily picture the indignation and dismay of the Government officials if they should be told that bass flutes and tenors lined an octave beneath the violins, and six stringed basses were wanted. The functionary, Jack-in-office, is the same in every age and every clime. He would swell and turn red and fluster and declare that what was good enough for his predecessors was good enough for him. He would think and say nothing of what was good enough for Mozart, Beethoven or Wagner; his one feeling would be that any change was a nuisance and a change from a state of affairs ordained by a former official a positive insult. And even without his opposition the change would be hard to effect. The complete modern orchestra would be seldom required for a long time; the extra players would have to be paid all the year round, and they would rarely be called upon to play. There, then, is one difficulty. The other is that while in Germany there are plenty of men who can write for the band, most of them are pedants. The pedant mind having painfully learned how to circumvent the shortcomings of the ordinary orchestra would certainly resent a change which would make the work easier. They would "regard with suspicion" a band which did not need to be faked for in scoring, a score that did not need to be faked in the playing. The very defects of the ordinary machine would become more precious than ever in their eyes. An analogous fact may be observed in the case of amateur musicians. When your tenor rises to warble in the drawing room the chances are many hundreds to one that he will imitate the most atrocious mannerisms of his pet model. Let a great or popular pianist roll at the piano, and lo! the drawing rooms are speedily inundated with rollers. In the provinces of England I have known many singers whose exceeding glory it was to imitate precisely all the faults of a Sims Reeves or a Santley. And so with the pedant organist, the pedant composer; the faults of the past are regarded as the virtuous necessities of the present. The pedant composer would not write for a rationally constituted orchestra; and he would do his best to make it a waste of time for anyone else to write for it.
33We have no orchestras in England; we have pedants, but they cannot write for the orchestra. If we are going to have orchestras, why should they not be rational ones, and why should not our dazzling, symphonic poem writing young men insure their being rational ones by waiting for no other? Voilà possibilities! From being the most backward musical nation in Europe we might become, the first. It would be no harder to found such an orchestra than a stupid, old fashioned one; to say the least, it would be no harder to write for it. All the instruments can be heard, some of them need not be heard. For instance, there would be no difference in tone between the six stringed bass and the ordinary one; the tenor can be heard at Mr. Dolmetsch's concerts and elsewhere—its tone is not unlike that of the 'cello. Whoso can write for the Strauss orchestra can easily write for this; the more easily because no faking to do in grouping the instruments. Therefore I declare that every ambitious composer should henceforth boldly compose for the mod-
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