DICTIONARY OF MUSIC - El Atril

480 INSTRUMENTATION INSTRUMENTATION
and harmony, like Berlioz, that seems to have
no sense :
Harp.
mw^ .zb.y^-Fii— ^^f|%!;^i3=
but writes deliberate cacophony such as these :
-
Flute.fg: jp:|p:. ll »-I2p. ^b>
i3=i=
^
not to mention the bleating of sheep in ' Don
(Juixote ' and the battle in ' Ein Heldenleben,
things which really seem outside the pale of
music altogether. And the consideration of
such exceptional cases as these leads us to glance
at the phase tlirough which the art of orchestration
is now (in 1905) passing. The marvellous
polyphony of Wagner's later works was intended,
above all, to produce an emotional effect by
means which—though subtle—were yet susceptiljle
of analysis, and only in the extremest
dramatic moments broke their own laws. But
an attempt is now being made to produce still
greater emotional effect by a style of orchestral
writing which defies analysis, and in which the
music 2Jer se has but a weak structure and
material of the utmost degree of tenuity. This
is surely a return to the poetically intended
but unsuccessful strivings of Franz Liszt ! It is
of no use to astonish an audience and worry an
orchestra by writing almost impossible passages
if tliere be no definite structure beneath the
dazzling surface. And there are very lew of the
musical works we now allude to which will bear
the simple but infallible test of being played
upon the piano.
The distinction to be drawn between the
merit of orchestration itself and the value of
the music to which it is applied brings us to
another point. Many books on orchestration
have been written, and beyond the first details
the student finds them all equally disaj)pointi)ig
and useless. The reason of this is that the
quotations from scores, the more admirable they
are, the less they appeal to the student's needs.
Berlioz, for instance, gives seventeen examples
from Gluck, seventeen from Beethoven, and
twelve eccentric—but one hardly dare say
successful—specimens from his own pen. None
represent normal music such as a student would
be likely to write. Gevaert's monumental
treatise is the best, but of his 276 (!) quotations
from Beethoven not one would be of practical
use, as they one and all are the outcome of
Beethoven's originality. Eichard Hofmann
has written a ponderous treatise with many
hundreds of quotations—mostly identical with
those in Gevaert. His method of teaching the
art is to set the student to score chorales for
every conceivable combination of instruments.
This might teach score-reading, but would have
no further effect. Not till about 1896 did it
occur to any one to teach the translation of
pianoforte music into orchestral idiom, which
is all that a book can teach on this subject.
For the relation between eye and ear can only
be learnt through exercise of both, especially
the latter. The tyro who looks at this simple
example
cannot possibly appreciate its beauty. Flute,
oboe, and clarinet, all have the same iihrases, and
look exactly alike. And again, who could, from
a mere inspection of the notes, guess for what
instruments our first quotation from Bach was
scored, and appreciate its extreme boldness ?
No : orchestration can only be learnt by teaching
the ear to remember effects already heard, while
the eye renders doubtful and untrustworthy assistance
as to the putting these upon paper. But
much might be learnt by a critical comparison of
the different scoring of similar passages—when
these can be found. One interesting example of
this kind exists in the two arrangements of
Weber's ' ' Invitation a la Valse by Berlioz and
Felix Weingartner, illustrating very vividly the
progress in our art from 1841 to 1896. We
append a couple of specimens, giving, as in all
our other quotations, the real notes to all the
instruments, for facility of reading.