What, in no uncertain terms, is "bad" orchestration?

[greg]

I think there are obvious bad examples. Say, if a composer wrote a huge mass of loud sound for a full orchestra and gave the most important line to a solo bassoon  , that wouldn't work too well.

(or a trumpet doubling a flute, etc.)

[Renfield]

I think there are obvious bad examples. Say, if a composer wrote a huge mass of loud sound for a full orchestra and gave the most important line to a solo bassoon  , that wouldn't work too well.

(or a trumpet doubling a flute, etc.)

Do we include directions like 'forte' in the orchestration, though?

If not, imagine if a particularly savvy conductor could get them to pull off a sound quiet enough for the bassoon to be heard. What then?

[greg]

Do we include directions like 'forte' in the orchestration, though?

If not, imagine if a particularly savvy conductor could get them to pull off a sound quiet enough for the bassoon to be heard. What then?

Oh yeah, I mean a loud orchestra blasting away fff, with some important main theme being played by a solo bassoon (or even better, a solo alto flute in its low register).
If a conductor pulled that off, the orchestra wouldn't really be fff. 
(or the instrument would have to be miked)

[Renfield]

Oh yeah, I mean a loud orchestra blasting away fff, with some important main theme being played by a solo bassoon (or even better, a solo alto flute in its low register).
If a conductor pulled that off, the orchestra wouldn't really be fff. 
(or the instrument would have to be miked)

Exactly.

My point being, are performance indicators like 'fff' considered part of the orchestration? Because that's only an orchestration issue if they are. Otherwise, I'd call it a problem of composition, i.e. "why one earth would you ask for fff when you've got a solo bassoon part there?"

[karlhenning]

(or a trumpet doubling a flute, etc.)

At the unison, you mean.  I think if you double them at the octave, where the trumpet is playing softly in (say) the bottom twelfth of the range, the result can be most successful.

[greg]

Exactly.

My point being, are performance indicators like 'fff' considered part of the orchestration? Because that's only an orchestration issue if they are. Otherwise, I'd call it a problem of composition, i.e. "why one earth would you ask for fff when you've got a solo bassoon part there?"

Hmm.... I guess it would depend. It could be either way- if it was orchestrated from a short score that was originally intended for solo piano, then it would be a problem of orchestration. If it were conceived all at once, then it'd be a problem of composition.

At the unison, you mean. 

Yep.

[snyprrr]

Shosty reorch'd Schumann's Cello Concerto. Anyone?

I think I hear some xylophone in the reorch. The recording I have (Olympia) isn't the last word in clarity.

And, does anyone have the Kalevi Aho reorch or Mussorgsky?







Maybe I misunderstand a lot. Please bear with me.
What if you have a music that starts off (or, for the whole piece) in the low/lowest registers. Suppose I want to write a De Profundis? I'll want to have a lot of slithering, soupy, muddy instruments oddling all over each other, like subterrainean(sic) snakes.

Orchestration wouldn't really be the point, would it? Because, EVERYTHING is going to be in the low register. All of the usual suspects will be there: double basses, tubas (bass tubas!), percussion/timpani, piano/harp, bass flute, bass clarinet,... perhaps one WOULD use treble instruments in their weakest/lowest registers,...

Wouldn't the overall effect be of 'different shades of black'?, and not, a confusion of tone colors?



(Yes, I DO realize my point is slipping away, but,... )





I guess, my impression is that 'bad orchestration' can only occur in 'normal', 'old fashioned' music where octave-doubling comes with the territory. When I 'improvise' Shosty-type stuff at the piano, my left hand makes bass octaves and my right hand makes melody octaves, so that there's usually two sets of octaves making up the music. Is THIS the type of music that is an immediate candidate for bad orchestration? Basically, you could have the whole orchestra just doubling those four (actually two) notes. Why does this sound like Romantic Penderecki to me?



I'm sorry, I'm not making any sense,... the result of wanting to say something, but not knowing what that is!

[Florestan]

Let those of you who are without the sin of bad orchestration cast the first stone on Bruckner / Dittersdorf / Whoever. 

Case closed.

[knight66]

I am going to go back to some points on the Beethoven Missa Solemnis. I have sung in it about half a dozen times. On one occasion I was surprised during a performance in a cathedral, the huge organ behind me started up. My wife said it was audible and added richness and grandeur. It would be interesting to know what words were being sung when the organ is orchestrated. I only have a piano reduction.

However, there are certainly some points where in the choral bass line the score shows ff, but it is placed in the voice where the bases cannot produce any real volume of sound, push as we might, and at a point where the rest of the musicians are singing and playing at full tilt.

I hesitate to be critical of the piece in any way, it is stupendously taxing physically, but that is a lot of the point of it. If I was only allowed to sing one piece once more it would be the Missa.

Turning to the Bruckner Te Deum; I find some of the choral work bombastic, especially the third movement. Certainly the way we had to sing it, it became a shouting match. But then....that may well have been the conductor's fault. However, here is Karajan and it is pretty much as I recall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YonB14gkQyA&feature=related

Incidentally, I think Karajan's slowing down of the 'In gloria' passage is not to its benefit.

Singing it gave me such an aversion to the piece, I have not listened to it for many years, despite my love of just about everthing else Bruckner wrote. Sarge is right that some of the music displays a compulsiveness. Bruckner suffered from an obsessive compulsive disorder.

Mike

PS...now going through the whole piece on Youtube.

[karlhenning]

However, there are certainly some points where in the choral bass line the score shows ff, but it is placed in the voice where the bases cannot produce any real volume of sound, push as we might, and at a point where the rest of the musicians are singing and playing at full tilt.

That's poorly done, certainly.

[Sergeant Rock]

Incidentally, I think Karajan's slowing down of the 'In gloria' passage is not to its benefit.

I like the way he does it. I think it's very moving...obvious maybe, but moving. If you want the entire Aeterna section at the same basic tempo check out Barenboim and Jochum. They are both thrilling here, charging right through to the end without slowng down, and at a far faster tempo than Karajan or Klemp or Celi. Klemperer's pretty straightforward too but does pull back just a little for the final in glorias. Celibidache, at a speed so slow you wouldn't think he has anywhere else to go, also pulls in the reins, bringing the proceedings to a complete halt 

Sarge

[Renfield]

[...] Barenboim and Jochum. They are both thrilling here, charging right through to the end without slowng down, and at a far faster tempo than Karajan or Klemp or Celi.

Indeed. For some reason, though rationally I do understand Jochum's is a solid enough recording while I'm listening to it, emotionally it feels a little like his similarly-rationally-good DG Bruckner 8th: too much drive!

If the Barenboim you refer to is on EMI, recently coupled with a Mozart Requiem, I wasn't even thinking it was a 'rationally good performance' listening to that one. Edit: In other words, I found it quite sloppy. But that's all off-topic, I realise! Blast.

[Sergeant Rock]

Indeed. For some reason, though rationally I do understand Jochum's is a solid enough recording while I'm listening to it, emotionally it feels a little like his similarly-rationally-good DG Bruckner 8th: too much drive!

Exactly my impression. I've always preferred Karajan to Jochum in both the Te Deum and the 8th.

The Bareboim recording I have is EMI but a twofer coupled with the E minor and F minor Masses and motets. I like it for being in the "completely different" category 

Sarge

[knight66]

Oh, don't mind me re that Te Deum. But I think the Karajan is being like hit over the head. There are times when seeing the work from the inside is not an advantage. Several violinists in orchestras have said to me they detest Mozart symphonies, clearly because they don't get much out of their own line. But standing back the thing works a treat.

The converse is often true though. I am sure I would never have got to grips with Stravinsky's 'Les Nocces' if I had not had to slog to learn it. It then came alive in a way I know it never could have were I only listening to it.

Mike

[jochanaan]

Do we include directions like 'forte' in the orchestration, though?

Yes.  One of the reasons Mahler's orchestration is so effective is his meticulous care on dynamic markings. However, it's also true that different conductors will tell different players to bring out what they've got, and that dynamic markings are less "sacrosanct" than the actual notes.

[False_Dmitry]

Yes.  One of the reasons Mahler's orchestration is so effective is his meticulous care on dynamic markings. However, it's also true that different conductors will tell different players to bring out what they've got, and that dynamic markings are less "sacrosanct" than the actual notes.

Completely agreed.  The approach that "only the notes" are the "composition" is something banged into us when we're aged 7 by bad piano-teachers.  Dynamic markings, articulation markings, phrase-markings, bowings, tongueings (rarely-found, but sometimes), fingerings, grace-notes, ossias, marked & implied ornamentation, etc, are all integral parts of compositions - and failure to observe them is just as "wrong" as playing the "wrong" notes. 

Without these elements the "Pizzicato Polka" would be the "Arco Legato Polka",  Haydn's "Surprise" Symphony would be "Unsurprising" Symphony, and the "Mad Scene from Lucia di Lammermoor" would be "Lucia The Pragmatic & Sensible Of Lammermoor".

"Notes, notes, all I can hear is notes!  For chrissake stop playing me notes!  And try playing some bloody music for a change!
- Russian conductor Vladislav Bulakhov, during a rehearsal of Britten's SERENADE FOR TENOR, HORN & STRINGS

[Popov]

Anyway a "bad orchestration" can be appealing too, don't you think? That strings-like ostinato for the brass in A Night on the Bare Mountain's original version is full of win

[karlhenning]

Anyway a "bad orchestration" can be appealing too, don't you think?

Right. I'll bet Dittersdorf never broke The Rules ; )

[Brahmsian]

I could care less if it's good or bad orchestration.  I'm much more interested in good music.  Period.

[Scarpia]

I could care less if it's good or bad orchestration.  I'm much more interested in good music.  Period.

Given that orchestration is an important aspect of music, this statement doesn't make much sense to me.