Poor balance examples?

[relm1]

There are many examples of works that are finely balanced instrumentally.  I am looking for examples of POOR balance.  For example, maybe the melody is obscured by the accompaniment or the texture is too thick due to uneven registers within a section.  Do any examples come to mind?

[DaveF]

I think when you encounter composers who tend to be "special interest" areas rather than those whose achievement is unquestioned, you may find disputes starting up along the lines of "X can't orchestrate/overorchestrates/can't translate sounds from inner ear to page" - "Oh yes he can, it's just that orchestras aren't used to his work and can't play it properly" etc.  I'm not thinking of any particular composer here.

Of course, someone whose orchestration is routinely criticised is Schumann; I don't know whether the balance of his orchestration is being questioned (to my ear, the Schumann orchestral sound may not be the most imaginative, but is always clear and effective), but it certainly involves a lot of unnecessary hard work for string players - poor violas scratching away in endless double-stops to little effect.  In fact, Schumann is probably the opposite instance of what the thread asks for - the amount of internal detail should make his scoring sound heavy and unbalanced, but somehow it doesn't.

[relm1]

I think when you encounter composers who tend to be "special interest" areas rather than those whose achievement is unquestioned, you may find disputes starting up along the lines of "X can't orchestrate/overorchestrates/can't translate sounds from inner ear to page" - "Oh yes he can, it's just that orchestras aren't used to his work and can't play it properly" etc.  I'm not thinking of any particular composer here.

Of course, someone whose orchestration is routinely criticised is Schumann; I don't know whether the balance of his orchestration is being questioned (to my ear, the Schumann orchestral sound may not be the most imaginative, but is always clear and effective), but it certainly involves a lot of unnecessary hard work for string players - poor violas scratching away in endless double-stops to little effect.  In fact, Schumann is probably the opposite instance of what the thread asks for - the amount of internal detail should make his scoring sound heavy and unbalanced, but somehow it doesn't.

Right, I thought the same about Schumann and was listening to his symphonies but found them quite effective and well balanced.  What I don't know is if that is the result of later editions and performance history where there is a "common practice" about how to approach a flawed passage.  What about early Bruckner symphonies or even early Brahms?  I also understand early Tchaikovsky was problematic.

[Jo498]

At the premiere of Brahms German Requiem the final fuge of the 3rd movement was supposedly drowned in a brass and tympani pedal point. Brahms changed the dynamics, maybe also som orchestration but it's not a problem nowadays.

[jochanaan]

Stravinsky himself called attention to a balance problem in The Rite of Spring; the first violin part, an important counter-melody, tends to get buried among the brass and percussion.

Sibelius, toward the end of Symphony #2's second movement, inexplicably writes a fortissimo outburst with the flutes an octave below the trumpets, without support! They're never heard, even as "ghosts."

Of course, these are rare examples.  Sibelius and Stravinsky usually knew exactly what they wanted and how to go about getting it.

[mc ukrneal]

Beethoven's Fidelio is the only example that comes immediately to mind...

[Mirror Image]

Even though Vaughan Williams' 5th is one of my most cherished works, the second movement, Scherzo, always sounds unbalanced to my ears. I know the strings are supposed to be playing relatively quietly in many of these passages and this is juxtaposed with those brass outbursts makes for kind of a jarring effect, but perhaps that was his intent? Another example is the Prelude to Janáček's The Makropulos Case where there's a section with the brass being subdued or buried and then all of a sudden the strings come in with a musical passage that's at a normal volume. The orchestral suite of this opera (either arr. by Serebrier or Breiner) eliminates this problem, but in Mackerras' recording of the full opera it's quite noticeable.

[Jo498]

Beethoven's Fidelio is the only example that comes immediately to mind...

Instrumental or vocal/instrumental balances? Where exactly? Certainly not throughout the whole opera...
Or do you mean the "balance" between the singspiel-like parts of the first act and the more heroic music of the rest?

[The new erato]

Even though Vaughan Williams' 5th is one of my most cherished works, the second movement, Scherzo, always sounds unbalanced to my ears. I know the strings are supposed to be playing relatively quietly in many of these passages and this is juxtaposed with those brass outbursts makes for kind of a jarring effect, but perhaps that was his intent?

Wasn't this the symphony of which Rafe said " I don't likeit, but it is what I meant" or something to that intent?

[Mirror Image]

Wasn't this the symphony of which Rafe said " I don't likeit, but it is what I meant" or something to that intent?

Nope, that was his 4th.

[Brian]

The ending of Sibelius' Seventh - the musical and emotional resolution of the piece comes as the strings en masse resolve to two unison notes of C. First they play the first two notes of the trombone theme (and the first two notes of the flute theme - that little D-C is the motif the whole piece is built on). Then, an octave up, they rise up to a final C.

Unfortunately, while the strings do the D-C step, resolving the work's main theme, there's a loud timpani roll and a trumpet outburst. Next to no conductors have ever been able to balance this so that the strings are even audible. (Inkinen on Naxos may be the best option for these bars.)

Toscanini used to "help" two passages in the Brahms Third Symphony, one near the start and one at the climax of the finale, each where Brahms had too high expectations for the ability of the cellos and basses to cut through the orchestra's texture.

[relm1]

The ending of Sibelius' Seventh - the musical and emotional resolution of the piece comes as the strings en masse resolve to two unison notes of C. First they play the first two notes of the trombone theme (and the first two notes of the flute theme - that little D-C is the motif the whole piece is built on). Then, an octave up, they rise up to a final C.

Unfortunately, while the strings do the D-C step, resolving the work's main theme, there's a loud timpani roll and a trumpet outburst. Next to no conductors have ever been able to balance this so that the strings are even audible. (Inkinen on Naxos may be the best option for these bars.)

Toscanini used to "help" two passages in the Brahms Third Symphony, one near the start and one at the climax of the finale, each where Brahms had too high expectations for the ability of the cellos and basses to cut through the orchestra's texture.

That's a very interesting observation.  He also has the flutes doubling the violin but extremely low in their range.  I also thought this worked magnificently but I'm a brass player    This is a perfect example of poor balance but I can't help but think its intentional.  The loud brass and timpani go e minor while strings and winds are on the D, then the brass builds to a fortissimo c major with a decrescendo down to mf while the strings build up to fortissimo from a B to a final C.  Its like the final resolution is very hard won and definitive but emerges only after tumult.  The fortress is left intact when the fog clears.  That's how I hear it.  I think this is a great example of intentionally poor balance.

EDIT: Damn it Lenny!  He put in a fortissimo in all brass at the end after the strings arrive on their C.  lol...this is Sibelius by way of Mahler.

https://youtu.be/dfwLm1rW14Q?t=1515

[mc ukrneal]

Instrumental or vocal/instrumental balances? Where exactly? Certainly not throughout the whole opera...
Or do you mean the "balance" between the singspiel-like parts of the first act and the more heroic music of the rest?

The struggles that Beethoven had with this opera are well documented. I was thinking of the balance between voice and orchestra, as this is something that Beethoven himself wrote about having issues with.  There is also the balance of the overture to the rest of the opera. We have several choices (overtures) to choose from, though none of them seem quite ideal (though all are quality and very interesting to compare). It is interesting to follow the creation and evolution of this opera.

[Luke]

As was maybe suggested above, Janacek is a particularly rich source of 'poorly' balanced orchestrations, full of 'mistakes.' I use the '' marks because although these mistakes definitely are mistakes according to traditional ways of thinking about such things, they are also so echt-Janacek that they are necessary to the music, IMO. Certainly, I'd rather hear them, with all the struggle and difficulty they bring with them, than the nicely tidied-up versions by well-meaning conductors which were mentioned earlier. Janacek isn't about nice tidy edges and easily-balanced textures. He's about rawness and humanity, and to hear e.g. a single cor anglais struggling against a heavy orchestral imbalance somehow emphasizes that.* It is a bit like the infamous high bassoon at the beginning of The Rite, which is meant to sound difficult and perhaps even ugly ('like a strangled chicken' is the phrase I remember). Nowadays, with our more able players, it tends to sound too effortless, and through an 'improved' sound we lose a lot of what makes the music special.

*There is a halfway house in Janacek which IIRC conductors like Mackerras did often tend to follow, which is to make minimal changes to the score, just enough to obviate the worst of the imbalance. But such things as Talich did to the Vixen suite....well, it's pretty damn thrilling, but is it really Janacek?

[Mirror Image]

As was maybe suggested above, Janacek is a particularly rich source of 'poorly' balanced orchestrations, full of 'mistakes.' I use the '' marks because although these mistakes definitely are mistakes according to traditional ways of thinking about such things, they are also so echt-Janacek that they are necessary to the music, IMO. Certainly, I'd rather hear them, with all the struggle and difficulty they bring with them, than the nicely tidied-up versions by well-meaning conductors which were mentioned earlier. Janacek isn't about nice tidy edges and easily-balanced textures. He's about rawness and humanity, and to hear e.g. a single cor anglais struggling against a heavy orchestral imbalance somehow emphasizes that.* It is a bit like the infamous high bassoon at the beginning of The Rite, which is meant to sound difficult and perhaps even ugly ('like a strangled chicken' is the phrase I remember). Nowadays, with our more able players, it tends to sound too effortless, and through an 'improved' sound we lose a lot of what makes the music special.

*There is a halfway house in Janacek which IIRC conductors like Mackerras did often tend to follow, which is to make minimal changes to the score, just enough to obviate the worst of the imbalance. But such things as Talich did to the Vixen suite....well, it's pretty damn thrilling, but is it really Janacek?

I like my Janacek 'rough-and-ready' as well and agree that this is the way musicians ought to perform Janacek, especially since so much of his later music utilizes vocal speech patterns. Like you mentioned, it gives the music a humanity and even a purity. What I really admire about his music is that rawness you speak of and I think when conductors smooth over the edges in Janacek, they're killing the spirit the music contains and how it was meant to be heard.

[relm1]

I like my Janacek 'rough-and-ready' as well and agree that this is the way musicians ought to perform Janacek, especially since so much of his later music utilizes vocal speech patterns. Like you mentioned, it gives the music a humanity and even a purity. What I really admire about his music is that rawness you speak of and I think when conductors smooth over the edges in Janacek, they're killing the spirit the music contains and how it was meant to be heard.

That's an interesting point.  Sometimes conductors assume too much in their role and might have a more dominant method of asserting their point of view.  The composer might then have to really exaggerate their intent (so you get strange things like Schoenberg's dynamics of ppppp on a high flute). 

[Mirror Image]

That's an interesting point.  Sometimes conductors assume too much in their role and might have a more dominant method of asserting their point of view.  The composer might then have to really exaggerate their intent (so you get strange things like Schoenberg's dynamics of ppppp on a high flute).

Actually, it was Luke who had the interesting point. All I did was reiterate what he already said. But I agree with you, too.

[(poco) Sforzando]

That's an interesting point.  Sometimes conductors assume too much in their role and might have a more dominant method of asserting their point of view.  The composer might then have to really exaggerate their intent (so you get strange things like Schoenberg's dynamics of ppppp on a high flute).

Schoenberg came up with a unique solution to problems of balance in his atonal works. Since he no longer could rely upon a traditional tonal structure where harmonies were figured up from the bass, he had to come up with new solutions to orchestration, and he needed a way to indicate which were the primary melodic voices in his works. And so he uses a set of codes where the principal and secondary melodic voices are identified as Hauptstimme and Nebenstimme respectively. Alban Berg also adopted this method.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I suspect problems with balance are far more common than many listeners may realize, and this is one reason why I suggest it may be beneficial for listeners to learn something about reading scores, and to follow along with scores as they listen to recordings. Of course this is not necessary and I expect the suggestion to be resisted, but it can help listeners get a better sense of which recordings are more successful in realizing what composers wrote.

Start for example by finding a score of Beethoven's 5th Symphony and tell me if you can hear the trumpets at bars 182-183 of the first movement and then the woodwinds following. Gunther Schuller, who addresses problems like this in his provocative book "The Compleat Conductor," gets it right in his recording, but I don't hear the trumpets on any other version I know. Similarly, listen to the scherzo to the Brahms 4th, and see if you hear the violin run at the very end of the movement. If you know the score you'll see it, but I doubt you'll usually hear it. Schuller suggests that the passage is under-orchestrated and that it will help articulate the passage if at least half the section bows each note individually, but then you face the problem that the passage is written as slurred. And since Schuller's primary argument is to play scores as written (and to excoriate numerous other conductors for not doing just that), he is faced with an unresolvable problem.

The question has to be: what is the source of the balance problem? Is the composer at fault for writing the passage inaudibly, the conductor at fault for not bringing out the passage (or for that matter using larger orchestral forces than would have been typical when the composer wrote), or the recording engineer for not balancing the microphones properly? And can you always be sure the conductor hasn't rescored a passage to correct problems of balance, whether real or imagined?

That said, here are some other examples that come to mind (a number are from Beethoven, but that may be only because I've studied his scores especially closely):

- The end of the Bruckner 8th combines elements from the first and scherzo movements, but a motif from the adagio is present only in the horns and I can never hear it.
- In the second movement of the Beethoven 5th, a canonic passage for the woodwinds is frequently inaudible against the upper strings. In my comments a few weeks ago about the Honeck recording, I compared his treatment of the passage to Schuller's: https://www.dropbox.com/s/prv9tcu104lp38a/LvB%205-2%20185-191%20Honeck-Schuller.wav?dl=0
- How often do you distinctly hear the trombones, piccolo, and contrabassoon in the finale of that symphony? You will in Schuller: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7y58flncec4fmd7/LvB%205%20Schuller%203-4.wav?dl=0
- A passage only for bassoons in the Credo of the Beethoven Missa Solemnis (starting on p. 200 of the score if you have one) is so hard to hear that Toscanini doubled it with horns, even though Beethoven's instruments could not have played the necessary pitches.
- The return of the main theme (in the lower strings) in the first movement of LvB 8 has to be carefully balanced to as not to be obscured by the upper strings.
- Similarly, the main theme in the first movement of the Brahms G major Quintet is only in the cello, and the four upper strings must take pains not to obscure it.

I'm sure there are many more.

[Karl Henning]

- A passage only for bassoons in the Credo of the Beethoven Missa Solemnis (starting on p. 200 of the score if you have one) is so hard to hear that Toscanini doubled it with horns, even though Beethoven's instruments could not have played the necessary pitches.

Very easy for the bassoons to be anonymous in a full texture.