Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber’s Notes:

Underscores “_” before and after a word or phrase indicate _italics_
in the original text.
Equal signs “=” before and after a word or phrase indicate =bold=
in the original text.
Small capitals have been converted to SOLID capitals.
Illustrations and music scores have been moved so they do not break up
paragraphs.
Old or antiquated spellings have been preserved.
Typographical and punctuation errors have been silently corrected.

The Music-Lover’s Library

The Orchestra
And
Orchestral Music

By W. J. Henderson

_Author of “What Is Good Music?” Etc._

With Portraits

Charles Scribner’s Sons
New York :: :: :: 1902

_Copyright, 1899, by
Charles Scribner’s Sons_

Trow Directory
Printing and Bookbinding Company
New York

To the
=_Philharmonic Society of New York_=

which has maintained through fifty-seven years its
existence as an orchestra devoted to the
performance of artistic music

Preface

_This is not a text-book. It is not a treatise on instrumentation. It is not written for musicians, nor primarily for students of music, though the latter may find in it information of some value to them. This is simply an attempt to give to music lovers such facts about the modern orchestra as will help them in assuming an intelligent attitude toward the contemporaneous instrumental body and its performances. The author has endeavored to put before the reader a description of each instrument with an illustration which will enable him to identify its tone when next heard in the delivery of the passage quoted. Some account of the distinctive nature and functions of the strings, the wood, the brass, and the percussion instruments has been given. With this account go hand in hand some remarks on the development of methods of scoring. The reader will not find such historical matter in any other book with which the present writer is acquainted. Neither will he find anywhere else a history of the development of the conductor, which is given in this volume. The author has endeavored to make his work complete by describing the duties of the conductor and the requisites of good orchestral playing, and by recounting briefly the story of the growth of the orchestra and the development of its music. All other books on the orchestra which the author has seen are for the professional musician. In making one for the amateur of music the writer hopes to supply a need._

Contents

Part I
_How the Orchestra is Constituted_
Page
I. Instruments Played with the Bow 3
II. Wind-Instruments of Wood 19
III. Wind-instruments of Brass 30
IV. Other Instruments 37
V. The Orchestral Score 43

Part II
_How the Orchestra is Used_

VI. General Principles 61
VII. The Strings 66
VIII. The Wood-Wind 81
IX. The Brass and the “Battery” 97
X. Qualities of Good Orchestration 113
XI. Qualities of Orchestral Performance 124

Part III
_How the Orchestra is Directed_

XII. Development of the Conductor 147
XIII. Functions of the Conductor 164

Part IV
_How the Orchestra Grew_

XIV. From Peri to Handel 181
XV. From Haydn to Wagner 198

Part V
_How Orchestral Music Grew_
XVI. From Bach to Haydn 217
XVII. From Beethoven to Richard Strauss 226

Index 235

Portraits

Beethoven _Frontispiece_

FACING
PAGE
Arthur Nikisch 48
Haydn 86
Wagner 114
Charles Lamoureux 128
Theodore Thomas 142
Hans Richter 162
Berlioz 208