Orchestral Music
Discussion
Before the 17th century, both musicians and composers did not congregate for large ensembles aside from church programmed music, such as masses and requiems. Improvements in music notation and the exploration of Ancient Greek music allowed for more music composed and more players or singers. Composers began writing music for multiple string voices with harpsichord accompaniment. Oratorios and cantatas were created combining those ensembles with full choirs and solo singers. Clearer notation rules allowed for more complex music to be composed for larger ensembles. One of the biggest shifts was moving away from the church modes into the major/minor scales we're familiar with today.
Highly Worthy Music for Your Listening and Research Pleasure
George Frideric Handel: Water Music, HWV 348-350 - full baroque era orchestra with period instruments.
Heinrich Schutz: Alleluia: Lobet den Herren / Capriccio Stravagante / Vox Luminis / Sempé - several pieces from Schutz for an orchestral setting.
Jean Baptiste-Lully: March for the Turkish Ceremony - march from the 1600s.
Alessandro Scarlatti: 12 Sinfonie di concerto grosso - from 1715.
Georg Philip Telemann: Ouverture "Les Nations" in B flat major for Strings and Basso continuo, TWV 55:B5 - one of his many orchestral pieces.
Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons - here as well for their orchestral setting.
Antonio Vivaldi: La Stravaganza - another of his string orchestra pieces. He composed over 600 different pieces.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Brandenburg Concertos 1 - 6 - the full set of his Brandenburg Concertos.
Carl Philip Emmanuel Bach: Symphonies for Hamburg - by the mid 1700s, symphonies were in full swing.
Arcagelo Corelli: Concerto Grosso in D, Op. 6, no. 1 - one of his many concerto grosso.
Georg Friedrich Handel: Halleluiah - the excerpt from his much larger Messiah.
Johann Christian Bach: Symphony in G-minor, Op.6, No.6 - symphonies as a form took off with JC Bach, who composed quite a large number of them.
Luigi Boccherini: Symphony No 6 D minor Op 12 "La casa del diavolo" - an Italian composer of a number of symphonies and concertos.
Joseph Haydn: Symphony No. 104 - Haydn composed about 110 symphonies, along with all his other chamber works.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 1 - Mozart composed this at the age of 8.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 25 - Mozart composed his first symphony at age 8 or so. He composed his 25th symphony at age 17. In those 9 years, he composed 23 other symphonies!
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 39 - this, along with #40 and #41 were all composed in the summer of 1791, not long before he died. There is some speculation, that I tend to agree with, that these three symphonies should be viewed as one whole unit, like a trilogy. It is why I place all three of them here.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 40 - for me, all four movements of this symphony are utterly fantastic. By this point Mozart had easily mastered the form, so all that was left was creating beautiful melodies. And he mastered that as well.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 41 - the grand finale symphony. Again, he composed all three of these in one summer. Pay close attention to the masterful use of fugue in the fourth movement.
Discussion
Orchestral music of the 19th century saw a rise in programmatic music, as well as the use of much larger orchestras, to have more than 100 performers, which had never been done before. Program music is defined as the instrumental music itself having and following a narrative, telling a story. Earlier instrumental music was considered absolute music, in that the music did not tell a tale. Of course that wasn't fully accurate as some of the music evoked certain feelings as part of the performance of a dance or performative form, such as sonata form. Sturm und drang is an example where a certain imagery is alighted when the music plays a certain way. In the 19th century, instrumental music now became the main storyteller. Composers also used far more brass in the 19th century. Toward the end of the 19th century, composers drifted ever closer to full atonality, but the final jump into atonality would wait until the 20th century.
In terms of Orchestration, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov actually wrote "the book" on this topic, both in terms of his own compositions and an actual book. Rimsky-Korsakov's works are full of gorgeous use of the orchestra's collective sounds. We'll explore some below. I want to quote several portions of his introduction. He writes:
"I have tried to show the student how to obtain a certain quality of tone, how to acquire uniformity of structure and requisite power. I have specified the character of certain melodic figures and designs peculiar to each instrument or orchestral group, and reduced these questions briefly and clearly to general principles; in short I have endeavoured to furnish the pupil with matter and material as carefully and minutely studied as possible. Nevertheless I do not claim to instruct him as to how such information should be put to artistic use, nor to establish my examples in their rightful place in the poetic language of music. For, just as a handbook of harmony, counterpoint, or form presents the student with harmonic or polyphonic matter, principles of construction, formal arrangement, and sound technical methods, but will never endow him with the talent for composition, so a treatise on orchestration can demonstrate how to produce a well-sounding chord of certain tone-quality, uniformly distributed, how to detach a melody from its harmonic setting, correct progression of parts, and solve all such problems, but will never be able to teach the art of poetic orchestration. To orchestrate is to create, and this is something which cannot be taught.
"It is a great mistake to say: this composer scores well, or that composition is well orchestrated, for orchestration is part of the very soul of the work. A work is thought out in terms of the orchestra, certain tone-colours being inseparable from it in the mind of its creator and native to it from the hour of its birth. Could the essence of Wagner's music be divorced from its orchestration? One might as well say that a picture is well drawn in colours...
"The power of subtle orchestration is a secret impossible to transmit, and the composer who possesses this secret should value it highly, and never debase it to the level of a mere collection of formulae learned by heart...
"Though one's own personality be subordinate to that of another, such orchestration is nevertheless creative work. But on the other hand, to score a composition never intended for the orchestra, is an undesirable practice. Many musicians have made this mistake and persist in it. In any case this is the lowest form of instrumentation, akin to colour photography, though of course the process may be well or badly done."
--Rimsky-Korsakov, Principles of Orchestration, Introduction
Highly Worthy Music for Your Listening and Research Pleasure
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in Eb major, Op. 55 - Beethoven set the bar early in the 19th century with orchestral compositions, in particular his 3rd, 5th, and 9th symphonies, which I'll all link. This symphony he initially dedicated to Napoleon before Napoleon went full emperor, and then he rescinded the dedication. The 3rd Symphony is a much longer symphony than any that had previously been composed, and really delved into the depths of the forms.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67 - with the famous da da da daaaa beginning, conducted here by Leonard Bernstein. What's really fascinating about this symphony is it doesn't have any new fancy changes to form or even instrumentation (aside from being the first to include trombones in a symphony, in the fourth movement). The main theme of the first movement is just that intense and influential.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125 - I linked to it in an earlier discussion. This symphony is probably still the most influential symphony ever composed. So many following composers were enthralled with what Beethoven did here. He also composed this symphony after completely losing his hearing to tinnitus. The recording here is from Leonard Bernstein in December 1989, celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall with performers from both East and West Germany. The symphony has added importance to the people of Germany and the Ode to Joy part from the fourth movement was nearly named as the national anthem.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 in Eb major, Op. 73 - an amazing piano concerto.
Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 8 in B minor D 759 - It is also called the "Unfinished" symphony because only two movements were completed. There are sketches of the 3rd movement but nothing much for the fourth, so all that remains are the two first movements.
Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944 - Schubert never got to hear this symphony performed as he passed away at an early age. It is a tremendous work.
Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique - a clear example where the music narrates a tale.
Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 3 in Eb major, Op. 97 - it is actually the last of his symphonies, as the 4th symphony was composed around the time of his first symphony.
Franz Liszt: Les Preludes - one of the first examples of just program music, without traditional orchestral forms.
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 3 in F major, Op. 90 - all four of Brahms symphonies are well crafted, but I'm only putting in his third.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture - one of my favorites, great example of program music as the instrumental music tells the story of Romeo and Juliet.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake - the full ballet. One of the other areas where program music exploded was with ballets where the music narrates the events on stage. Tchaikovsky was a master at this craft.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Sleeping Beauty - the second of his amazing ballets.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker - his final, masterful ballet. You can also watch this video with the original score so you can see how Tchaikovsky composed this ballet.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in Bb minor, Op. 23 - great piano concerto.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 - great violin concerto.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64 - one of his great symphonies.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 74 - my favorite Tchaikovsky piece and one of the best recordings you will ever find, conducted by Teodor Currentzis.
Modest Mussorgsky: A Night on Bare Mountain - this is the original composition by Mussorgsky. The more commonly known version was orchestrated and rearranged by Rimsky-Korsakov, which I'll link to below as it is instructive for orchestration and arranging discussions.
Modest Mussorgsky: A Night on Bald Mountain - this is the rearranged version by Rimsky-Korsakov. The Mighty Five hadn't really appreciated Mussorgsky's version and felt it needed to be refined for popular attention, and Rimsky-Korsakov took it upon himself after Mussorgsky's death to revise it. It still didn't get enough attention until Leopold Stokowski refashioned it himself for the Fantasia for Disney in 1940. That's the version most Americans who know this piece are familiar with.
Edvard Grieg: In the Hall of the Mountain King - with chorus, as it is meant to be heard. This recording is also a very instructive example for understanding how many voices are needed to overpower how many instruments. And of course, we're not hearing it live, but through a recording. However, the chorus here cannot overpower the orchestra, so they really need more voices than they have.
Edvard Grieg: Piano Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 16 - the same Julia Fischer who performed in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is the star pianist in this recording of Grieg's famous piano concerto.
Antonin Dvorak: Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 - this symphony gets left by the wayside as all the attention goes to Dvorak's Ninth. However, the music here is astounding.
Antonin Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95 - his famous Ninth Symphony. When he premiered it in New York City, he received huge rounds of applause after each movement, that's how much they liked what they heard.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Sheherazade - this is a symphonic poem that has a lot of symphonic forms, but is considered more of a tone poem than a symphony.
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 in C minor - great symphony, large in scope.
Anton Bruckner: Symphony No. 9 in D minor - his unfinished symphony, which at No. 9, started the famous "Curse of the Ninth". After Beethoven, and before Bruckner, no other composer had composed more than 9 symphonies. Dvorak's numbering didn't get to 9 until after his death. Bruckner felt he would die with the 9th so his first symphony is actually numbered as zero. He thought he could finish the ninth, but was unable to. In the 20th century, I'll bring up Mahler, which fed more into the Curse of the Ninth superstition.
Richard Strauss: Tod und Verklärung - an early tone poem from Strauss. Most of his works will go in the 20th century module.
Discussion
20th Century orchestral music really begins with Mahler in the 1890s, which is why I put him in here and not there. He and Strauss straddle the line between the two centuries and also the jump into atonality. Mahler never touched atonality, and is known as the last Romantic, but he composed a lot of his symphonies in the 20th century so I'll put him here. Music of the 20th century was influenced by quite a lot of factors. The two world wars completely affected how all artists felt, and how they expressed their creative talents, including composers. The destruction of the "old world" changed dramatically how artists viewed life itself after World War I. Barriers of tonality were completely obliterated. The rise of technology drastically changed music forever. Now music was recorded and could be replayed over and over without live performances. Electronic amplification changed the importance of certain instruments and styles of music over others. Jazz and blues rose in popularity to classical, and then morphed into rock and roll. Film became a new medium in which music could be conveyed and expressed. Synthesized sounds now could be manipulated to sound almost as equal to live, organic sounds. Composers and musicians of all genres tinkered with synthesized sounds and computerized sounds. By the 21st century, you can created an almost realistic orchestral sound as a live orchestra. Below I will link to the first movement of my Symphony No. 1, which I composed with Dorico, and sound engineered with Noteperformer. It sounds almost as realistic as a live orchestra.
Highly Worthy Music for Your Listening and Research Pleasure
Daniel Nicolae Dubei: Symphony No. 1 in D - this is the first movement of my Symphony No. 1. I composed it with Dorico notation software, and the sounds are produced by Wallander's Noteperformer. As you can hear from the recording, it is nearly as good as a live recording from an orchestra.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 1 - a great start to the Mahler symphonies.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 2 in C minor - Mahler raised the bar with his second symphony, adding a chorus just like Beethoven, but truly changing the symphony to tell a story far more than previous composers had with symphonies. This one is subtitled "Resurrection Symphony". It is five movements with the fifth movement lasting 35 whole minutes, longer than most of Mozart's complete symphonies. The fifth movement is longer than Beethoven's Fifth symphony as a whole. This symphony has probably the best, most satisfying ending of all classical music.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 3 - the longest symphony at over one and a half hours, and some consider the best ever made.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 4 - very light symphony, a good contrast to his earlier ones.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 5 - classy, elegant symphony.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 6 - this happens to be my favorite symphony, and probably my favorite classical composition of all. Mahler composed this at the peak of his happiness and success. The fourth movement is about 32 minutes in length and includes three massive hammer blows, which he called the hammer blows of fate, sealing the death of the hero. Mahler was so superstitious that he removed the third hammer blow when revising the symphony. He was afraid he had composed an autobiography with this symphony. According to his wife, he cried with joy when rehearsing this symphony.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 7 - great follow up to the sixth.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 8 - Mahler didn't think he created something grand enough yet, so he said, why not create a large symphony with an even larger choir! This is the "Symphony of a Thousand".
Gustav Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde - Mahler was a superstitious man, and to avoid the "Curse of the Ninth" called this symphony not a symphony.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 9 - toward the end of his life, he composed this symphony, completing the "Ninth" and supposedly breaking the Curse of the Ninth. This symphony delves into the topic of death and the end of life. The ending of the symphony slowly fades away into nothingness, which, with this recording is remarkably achieved. This is Claudio Abbado's last recording before he passed away. The audience stayed quiet for over two minutes taking in the end of this symphony.
Gustav Mahler: Symphony No. 10 - Mahler thought he could escape the Curse of the Ninth, but he was unable to complete his tenth symphony before he passed away. However, he completed enough notes that others have taken upon themselves to complete and orchestrate for him. This recording is from the Deryck Cooke's revisions, which most have accepted as close to what Mahler wanted.
Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra - Strauss's tone poem. You'll immediately recognize the beginning, but the whole is highly instructive in the use of a massive orchestra.
Richard Strauss: An Alpine Symphony - composed for 125 player orchestra, depicting a day of climbing a mountain in the Alps.
Richard Strauss: Four Last Songs - composed in 1948 just before he passed away, these four songs are for soprano and large orchestra.
Claude Debussy: La Mer - Debussy's tone poem for large orchestra, filled with all the French impressionist harmonies.
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 - Sibelius composed seven impressive symphonies. His second is one of the best.
Jean Sibelius: Symphony No. 7 - conducted here by fellow Fin Esa Pekka Salonen, a composer himself.
Jean Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 - his amazing, technically highly difficult violin concerto.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 18 - 20th century but full of Romantic style composing.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 - building on the 2nd, Rachmaninoff created this masterpiece.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Symphony No. 2 - full of Romanticism.
Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird - Stravinsky's first ballet was more Romantic in harmony and color, more typical of the previous ballets. You can start to see here the intensity of what he will bring in just a couple of years.
Igor Stravinsky: Petruschka - Stravinsky pushes harmonies and rhythms just a bit further away from tonality here. This recording shows the ballet as well, full with racist minstrel shows, as was done in the early 20th century.
Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring - this is Stravinsky's game changing composition for ballet. This altered not only how ballet was performed throughout the 20th century and beyond, but musically, it opened a vast world of mixing rhythm and harmony. This score also crossed the divide of tonal and atonal. Stravinsky "borrowed" from Lithuanian and Ukrainian folk melodies and then chopped them up into little bits to fit rhythmically into what he envisioned. This video also recreates the ballet as seen in 1913 in Paris, with Nijinsky's original choreography. Enjoy!
Sergei Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf - music storytelling at its finest.
Sergei Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet - the full ballet from the 1930s.
Edgard Varèse: Amériques - following in some ways the footsteps of Rite of Spring, including a lot of musique concrete (sounds and noises not normally a part of the orchestra, but common noises heard around, such as car horns).
Alban Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra - composed for large orchestra right after the end of WWI.
Bela Bartok: Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta - Bartok's composition that can sound quite creepy.
Anton Webern: Six Pieces for Orchestra - very different style of composition for orchestra.
Luciano Berio: Sinfonia - composed in the late 60s, very different kind of composition.
Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gruppen - this is the graphic score for his avant garde composition.
Pierre Boulez: Repons - Boulez is known mostly for his conducting, but he also composed, mostly atonal music. Here he conducts his own piece.
Olivier Messiaen: Turangalila Sinfonie - for a gigantic orchestra, a large mix of atonality and tonality.
György Ligeti: Atmospheres - mixing in microtonality and polytonality.
Edward Elgar: Symphony No. 2 - tonal music shifted to England in classical music.
William Walton: Symphony No. 1 in Bb minor - another great symphony from the British.
Ralph Vaughn Williams: The Lark Ascending - one of his most popular tunes.
Lili Boulanger: Faust et Helene - her grand work that she won the Rome Prize for.
William Grant Still: Afro American Symphony - great work combining jazz with classical.
George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue - this recording includes breakout jazz trio sessions that expand on the gorgeousness of Gershwin's original.
George Gershwin: An American in Paris - one of the best compositions of the 20th century.
William Dawson: Negro Symphony - another amazing work.
Florence Price: Symphony No. 1 - another amazing work.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5 - he almost got executed for this composition.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 - composed during the siege of Stalingrad, the first movement is a gigantic exploration of that invasion by the Nazis.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 - composed after Stalin's death, Shostakovich felt he had some more freedom. He said the frenetic and crazy second movement was composed as his interpretation of Stalin.
Nikolai Kapustin: Piano Concerto No. 2 - Kapustin mostly composed for solo piano and some chamber work, but he did also compose several piano concertos for full orchestra.
Alfred Schnittke: Concerto Grosso No. 1 - having a prepared piano, two violinists and an orchestra with a lot of polytonal play.
Henryk Gorecki: Symphony No. 3 - highly tonal composition when so much music in that time went fully atonal.
Gerard Grisey: Partiels - from the 1970s, part of his exploration of spectralism, this is part three of a larger set called Les espaces acoustiques.
Jennifer Higdon: Blue Cathedral - 21st century composition.
Sofia Gubaidulina: In Tempus Praesens - 21st century composition.
Hans Abrahamsen: Let Me Tell You - composed for soprano and orchestra.
Julia Wolfe: Anthracite Fields - composition for orchestra and large choir.
Esa-Pekka Salonen: Violin Concerto - recent violin concerto.
Christopher Theofanidis: Rainbow Body - recent composition.
Missy Mazzoli: Sinfonia (for orbiting spheres) - symphonic composition from 2020.
John Adams: Sheherazade 2 - there are several compositions about Sheherazade, including this from Adams in the 21st century.
Aaron Copland: Symphony No. 3 - fantastic work from Copland.
Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring - Copland conducting his own work, which includes the Simple Gifts theme.