On a televised lecture about the Pathetique Symphony quite a few years ago, Andre Previn said that Tschaikovsky always wrote interesting figurations for the players that were a "joy to play" (exact words, or something close.) I thought it might be interesting to explore those composers who wrote well for a goodly number of instruments or some, or wrote well for some and rather indifferent for others.
Someone reported here or in the old GMG that Rachmaninoff wrote zillions of notes for the violin that were difficult to learn and play.
Instrumentalists who play in orchestras surely have something to share about this subject.
ZB
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on August 29, 2007, 06:58:28 AM
Someone reported here or in the old GMG that Rachmaninoff wrote zillions of notes for the violin that were difficult to learn and play.
even more true for Strauss....
but i remember someone else saying that Rachmaninov wrote zillions of notes that often couldn't be heard.... i haven't noticed too much of that when following his scores, but i think i have noticed some of it
Prokofiev wrote well for the castanet .......
Wagner wrote well for the Wagner Tuba .......
Quote from: D Minor on August 29, 2007, 08:31:06 AM
Prokofiev wrote well for the castanet .......
Mandolino, mon vieux!
Liszt also contributed to triangle literature. (Concerto for Piano in Eb)
ZB
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on August 29, 2007, 08:38:02 AM
Liszt also contributed to triangle literature. (Concerto for Piano in Eb)
ZB
Triangle-ists rejoice. :P
Liszt and Schoenberg are as gods unto harmoniumists.
Quote from: karlhenning on August 29, 2007, 08:43:02 AM
Liszt and Schoenberg are as gods unto harmoniumists.
Really? Where?
Quote from: Renfield on August 29, 2007, 08:42:47 AM
Triangle-ists rejoice. :P
Did anyone see the masterclass where Bernstein is trying to teach a student the proper place on the triangle to "ting" it? (He gave up in the end.)
ZB
Messiaen wrote well for the ondes martenot...
Chopin wrote well for the piano I think.
Dvorak always wrote great inner voice parts. I think it has to do with his experience as a violist. As a result his clarinet, horn, and viola parts are always very nice.
Quote from: hornteacher on August 29, 2007, 03:09:30 PM
Dvorak always wrote great inner voice parts. I think it has to do with his experience as a violist. As a result his clarinet, horn, and viola parts are always very nice.
Yeah, that's what I would like to hear, some
inside information about how instrumentalists feel about what's handed to them to play. I heard it's not a lot of fun for doublebass and 'cello players to play eternally repeating bass notes in operas.
ZB
Mahler wrote a lot of stuff that can be classified as ''a joy to play'', especially when you're a percussionist. Timpani and gongs!
Quote from: zamyrabyrd on August 29, 2007, 10:04:18 PM
Yeah, that's what I would like to hear, some inside information about how instrumentalists feel about what's handed to them to play. I heard it's not a lot of fun for doublebass and 'cello players to play eternally repeating bass notes in operas.
ZB
Well, a a hornist, I'm partial to Beethoven (who wrote very well for the valveless horn), Dvorak (who was great at creating tone color), and Copland (who wrote passages that could go from gorgeous to powerful in one measure).
scarlatti wrote well for the harpsichord
bach wrote well for the harpsichord
berio wrote interesting for the voice
cage wrote well for the prepared piano
penderecki wrote well for railroad track
xenakis wrote well for the strings
ligeti wrote well for the metronome
respighi wrote well for the recorded bird voices
saariaho wrote well for the computer
I like Mahler (landler in Sym 2), Rimsky-Korsakov (the celebratory bells from coronation in Boris Godunov), Wagner (beginning of act 1 the storm from Die Walkure), and Berlioz (Requiem). These are just examples.
Quote from: greg on August 30, 2007, 06:31:54 AM
penderecki wrote well for railroad track
for saw, and for siren too!
stockhausen writes great for the helicopter ;D
(I know, I'm not a musician, I should stay out of this thread. But Greg provoked me! :P)
Quote from: Maciek on August 30, 2007, 10:31:21 AM
for saw, and for siren too!
stockhausen writes great for the helicopter ;D
(I know, I'm not a musician, I should stay out of this thread. But Greg provoked me! :P)
hahaha saw and siren especially, i was going to mention that, but it would just ruin the flow of my post
Quote from: hornteacher on August 30, 2007, 03:28:44 AM
go from gorgeous to powerful in one measure).
Is there any mutual exclusivity between "gorgeous" and "powerful"?
Bach's chorales are ingeniously interesting for inner voices as well as outer. I was always glad to sing soprano in chorus as most of the time upper parts seemed to be where the music was in many composers, instead of just filling in chords. The same with 2nd violin, that I did play in high school. Bach, though, did not discriminate and gave nice lines equally to all performers.
ZB
This is just a layman's impression but I think Moniuszko (not an extremely famous composer but his example came to mind because I've been listening to a lot of his music lately) had something special for the cello and wrote pretty well for it: he always gives it prominent parts in his operas, and doesn't mind a bar or two of solo cello here and there. (OK, actually that means that only one of the cellists gets all the fun but I suppose it may also mean that he payed a lot of attention to the cello parts in general...?)
But I'm pretty sure Luke or Guido will be able to provide much better examples of orchestral cello writing.
Alexander Glazunov wrote well for the saxophone, his Concerto is maybe our most popular, gorgeous and lays so well on the horn.
Besides that the usual French suspects, Milhaud and Ibert especially. Solo modern stuff, there are tons, but Scelsi Tre Pezzi, Stockhausen En Freundschaft, Berio Sequenzas, very cool stuff, utilizing all the possible colors of the horn even if way hard to play.
Orchestral: Ravel (Bolero and Pictures - The Old Castle), Gershwin, Bernstein, Rachmaninoff Symphonic Dances, Berg's Lulu Suite, etc. And lots of contemporary composers now use it often in orchestral pieces, which is so great.
Strauss, Mendelssohn, Mozart, hm...... ::)
Xenakis=woodblocks/tom toms/trombone
DSCH=piccolo
Pettersson=snare drum
Mozart, von Weber, Brahms, Messiaen, Henning = clarinet
Berg: the Triangle
Strange that this thread should start off with Tchaikovsky... Many instrumentalists I know consider his music to be somewhat ungainly. The same is true of Brahms - his quartets are a joy to play, but only if you're up to the task of scaling the considerable technical challenges. His op.51 No.2 is a staple of quartet audition repertoire for violists.
Hindemith knew his way around a viola like no one else in history - he has a knack for writing parts that sound devilishly tricky but are typically quite simple to pull off.
Quote from: Greg on August 30, 2007, 06:31:54 AM
bach wrote well for the harpsichord
Bach wrote well for every single instrument at his disposal, but if i had to pick one instrument which to me characterizes his music the most it would have to be the organ.
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on August 05, 2010, 07:56:43 PM
Bach wrote well for every single instrument at his disposal, but if i had to pick one instrument which to me characterizes his music the most it would have to be the organ.
I agree.
Quote from: Dana on August 05, 2010, 07:11:27 PM
Strange that this thread should start off with Tchaikovsky... Many instrumentalists I know consider his music to be somewhat ungainly.
But let's be fair here; just consider the fact he composed so much great music for so many instruments!
Coplandi wrote well for the skin flute and mouth organ! :o
Quote from: snyprrr on August 15, 2010, 07:55:20 AM
Coplandi wrote well for the skin flute and mouth organ! :o
keep it clean and work on those meat whistle etudes. learn to spell 'Copland', too. >:(
Quote from: david johnson on August 16, 2010, 02:25:49 AM
keep it clean and work on those meat whistle etudes. learn to spell 'Copland', too. >:(
Whaaat?,...Antonio Coplandi?? Never heard of him? ;)
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on August 05, 2010, 07:56:43 PM
Bach wrote well for every single instrument at his disposal, but if i had to pick one instrument which to me characterizes his music the most it would have to be the organ.
agree with this.
I would not have mentioned the harpsichord, as his music did not make the most of the specificities of the instrument. Look... if you play his harpsichord works on the piano, it's usually as good.
By the way, Bach is not a fantastic orchestrator. Making the most of an instrument was not his aim. His music's beauty is not to be found in this discipline.
If you're looking for baroque instrumental creativity and colourness, you'll find more in Vivaldi or other italians.
I'm fond of Berlioz. I wish the French appreciated him more. They ought to tear down the Eiffel Tower and put up a 600 foot sculpture of a piccolo in the composers honor. (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/Smileys/classic/angel.gif)
Quote from: quintett op.57 on August 18, 2010, 05:15:15 AM
By the way, Bach is not a fantastic orchestrator. Making the most of an instrument was not his aim. His music's beauty is not to be found in this discipline.
If you're looking for baroque instrumental creativity and colourness, you'll find more in Vivaldi or other italians.
Being a good orchestrator is not just about being the most original, it's mainly about being expressive and apt to the purpose. There are hundreds of examples of Bach doing this, though remember that "orchestration" as a separate discipline is a 19th century idea.
do you think being expressive is only related to the fact of adapting one's music to a specific instrument.
What are we talking about?
The sound gettin out of the instruments in Bach's music is great. I mean, it's his music, he's a great composer. I'm not sure his being expressive is his best quality either, but anyway we're not talking about this, are we?
Regarding the harpsichord, a guy like Scarlatti uses it in much more various way. His music testes the possibilities of the instrument. Because of this, some of his works lose quality when it's played by a pianist.
I haven't played with an orchestra for a long, long time. But at one time performed first violin in several semi-professional orchestras.
Rachmaninoff and R. Strauss parts are difficult. Remember doing one of the Prokofiev piano concerti--his violin parts are sometimes inhumanely fast. Rimsky-Korsakov and Berlioz parts usually lie well for violin. Berlioz rhythms are tricky, though, particularly for a less than 100% professional orchestra. Did the Shostakovich First once. It was hard. Sibelius wrote well for the violin (he was a violinist). I think some of the passages for violin in Tschiakowsky's Ballets are more difficult than the symphonies.
Haven't played any operas since college. We performed "Tosca" and it was a delight to play. We also did one of the Bellilni operas, and the violin part was pretty boring.
Sometimes composers write four note chords for violin. The concertmaster will always divide the chords (violinists can't play all four notes simultaneously). Some of the three note chords will be treated the same. Another thing orchestral violinists don't like is a bowed passage immediately following a pizzicato passage (You need a little time to re-acquire your bow grip). There is a passage in Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" which is required to be played col legno (turning the bow over and hitting the strings with the wood instead of the hair). Players don't like to abuse their expensive equipment. I suspect professional players bring out their cheaper bows when they perform this symphony.
I like how certain composers really stretch out to explore the possibilities of various instruments. What Cage did for the piano for instance... it is still a piano but it does not sound the way you expect it to... Lachenmann springs to mind... the wood is part of the sonic repertoire of stringed instruments in more than one way... George Crumb's explorations of various instruments is great fun - marbles poured into a piano.... gurgling in a flute...
Also, I think Stravinsky's writing for violin in Duo Concertante is outstanding. There is this anecdote on how Stravinsky showed Dushkin some sketches on their first meeting and asked him whether it was possible to play the parts. Dushkin looked at them and shook his head, and Stravinsky replied "that's too bad". But when they met again, Dushkin had explored the notes and discovered how to perform them...
Quote from: Kreutzer on August 22, 2010, 07:28:32 PM
I haven't played with an orchestra for a long, long time. But at one time performed first violin in several semi-professional orchestras.
Rachmaninoff and R. Strauss parts are difficult. Remember doing one of the Prokofiev piano concerti--his violin parts are sometimes inhumanely fast. Rimsky-Korsakov and Berlioz parts usually lie well for violin. Berlioz rhythms are tricky, though, particularly for a less than 100% professional orchestra. Did the Shostakovich First once. It was hard. Sibelius wrote well for the violin (he was a violinist). I think some of the passages for violin in Tschiakowsky's Ballets are more difficult than the symphonies.
Haven't played any operas since college. We performed "Tosca" and it was a delight to play. We also did one of the Bellilni operas, and the violin part was pretty boring.
Sometimes composers write four note chords for violin. The concertmaster will always divide the chords (violinists can't play all four notes simultaneously). Some of the three note chords will be treated the same. Another thing orchestral violinists don't like is a bowed passage immediately following a pizzicato passage (You need a little time to re-acquire your bow grip). There is a passage in Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique" which is required to be played col legno (turning the bow over and hitting the strings with the wood instead of the hair). Players don't like to abuse their expensive equipment. I suspect professional players bring out their cheaper bows when they perform this symphony.
Very interesting :)
By the way, I always wondered if Britten's violin concerto, which is one of my favorite and which sounds terribly difficult for a non-violonist was that hard to play...
For the organ, I think (and am quite sure about this) that
Gigout's Toccata is the most impressive work composed for the instrument from a writing point of view : it sounds completely virtuoso but it is in fact quite simple to play. (well, I said "quite"...). There is a trick on the score, the very fast part is played alternatively with the left and the right hand but for 2 single notes at each bar, the main theme being a very slow pedal part. Thus the ratio difficulty for the player/impact on the listener is optimal. You can check it here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lveYWdncajQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lveYWdncajQ)
In the same vein, and more beautiful though much (much) harder to play,
Dupré's prélude & fugue in G minor uses the same trick (here by Daniel Roth in one of the best interpretation of this piece I've ever heard) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X6cZfy9uR0 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X6cZfy9uR0)
On the contrary, playing
Bach's Toccata in D minor is really difficult, and from this point of view I wouldn't consider Bach as a "good" writer for the organ, as his music is always technically demanding.
The other extreme is for me Ravel's Ondine in
Gaspard de la Nuit : the opening part with the raindrops sounds easy for the listener while it is a nightmare for the player. We could call that a rather uneffective style of writing. Ravel himself couldn't play it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1AjgkQKftM&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1AjgkQKftM&feature=related)
--Gilles
There are many of course who wrote good for the piano, but as a pianist you often orchestrate the piece you are playing at least by imagination. I have got the feeling with Brahms late piano works, that even when they bring out deep contrasts that would fit very easily into the orchestra with oboe soli, violin soli, I think their unique character is best carried out on the piano. I think there is something quite impressionistic with those pieces, the sound is so fat in its collors and still it should be played a bit indirect.
I don't tend to snipe grammatically at our worthy non-native English users, as in fact I applaud their ability to communicate in it as a second language. This is a worthwhile snipe, though:Quote from: mikkeljs on August 26, 2010, 09:05:18 AM
There are many of course who wrote good for the piano . . . .
Well, not good, there. That's an error that does sound bad, Mikkel. Especially given the subject header ; )
What was that story about Liszt and a group of composers and pianists looking at one of his score and observing that it was impossible to play a certain note at a certain point? Liszt sat down at the piano and showed them how to do it: by using his nose 8) I don't know whether that qualifies as good writing, but it is certainly an amusing party trick :)