MUSICAL COMPOSITION

COLOUR 101when the experience is small j not attempting to beginwhere Beethoven or Wagner left off, but working upthrough simplicity to a complexity which will benatural because it is not forced. The same holds trueof orchestration. What a century evolved in itsdevelopment, each composer must evolve in miniaturefor himself j beginning with the materials of Mozart,and on the basis of his incomparable method, addingby degrees to his materials, and elaborating them withthe help of the subsequent mechanical improvementsand inventions which have been made since his day.In indicating the plan which the student should follow,we shall assume that he has listened to orchestras, andknows the compass and character of the instruments.His first step should be one which involves considerabledrudgery and manual labour, in return for whichhe will be taking lessons from masters greater thanany he will be able to procure or to pay, and which areat his hand for the asking without travelling furtherthan the shelves of his own library: Mozart, Beethovenand Wagner. He will begin by taking lessons fromMozart. If he has listened with a careful and criticalear to some of that master's orchestral compositions,he will have noticed the main principles upon whichhe works, and the nature of the materials which hehas at his command. He must adopt both the principlesand the limited means./ To take the materialsfirst: flutes, oboes, clarinets (in C, B flat, A),bassoons, drums, violins, violas, violoncellos and doublebasses are practically as at the present day. Not sothe horns and trumpets, which, being the naturalinstruments without valves or slides, must only begiven those notes to play which they can produce. On