Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Lip-vibrated instruments of the ancient and non-western world
- 2 How brass instruments work
- 3 Design, technology and manufacture before 1800
- 4 Brass instruments in art music in the Middle Ages
- 5 The cornett
- 6 ‘Sackbut’: the early trombone
- 7 The trumpet before 1800
- 8 The horn in the Baroque and Classical periods
- 9 Design, technology and manufacture since 1800
- 10 Keyed brass
- 11 The low brass
- 12 Brass in the modern orchestra
- 13 Brass bands and other vernacular brass traditions
- 14 Playing, learning and teaching brass
- 15 The post-classical horn
- 16 Jazz, improvisation and brass
- 17 Brass solo and chamber music from 1800
- 18 Frontiers or byways? Brass instruments in avant-garde music
- Glossary
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
12 - Brass in the modern orchestra
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 September 2011
- Frontmatter
- Introduction
- 1 Lip-vibrated instruments of the ancient and non-western world
- 2 How brass instruments work
- 3 Design, technology and manufacture before 1800
- 4 Brass instruments in art music in the Middle Ages
- 5 The cornett
- 6 ‘Sackbut’: the early trombone
- 7 The trumpet before 1800
- 8 The horn in the Baroque and Classical periods
- 9 Design, technology and manufacture since 1800
- 10 Keyed brass
- 11 The low brass
- 12 Brass in the modern orchestra
- 13 Brass bands and other vernacular brass traditions
- 14 Playing, learning and teaching brass
- 15 The post-classical horn
- 16 Jazz, improvisation and brass
- 17 Brass solo and chamber music from 1800
- 18 Frontiers or byways? Brass instruments in avant-garde music
- Glossary
- Notes
- Select bibliography
- Index
Summary
The thing that we commonly call the modern orchestra is not really modern at all. It existed more or less in its present form in the early nineteenth century – even its seating arrangements were fixed by 1860. The repertoire it plays regularly was, for the most part, created between 1750 and the First World War: a sizeable number of regularly performed pieces were written in the first half of the twentieth century, but little of the orchestral music composed in the second half of the century has gained even a tenuous hold on the public's affections. The ‘modern orchestra’ is, if not exactly a fossil itself (as is sometimes alleged), then at least a collector of antiquities. This chapter describes evolving styles of writing for brass in the orchestral museum.
The brass section of a standard symphony orchestra will generally consist of four or five horns, three trumpets, three trombones and a tuba. This basic dozen will be enough for most of the music that is likely to be encountered, but is not an exact fit. Eighteenth-century brass sections were small – usually two horns and two trumpets. There was growth throughout the nineteenth century, culminating in Schoenberg's Gurrelieder (1912) which uses a brass section of twenty-five. Thereafter, composers continued to write for symphony orchestra but smaller forces have been common since about 1918.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments , pp. 157 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997