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Agree with what I said?

Solo/chamber music, orchestral music & tone colors

7K views 51 replies 24 participants last post by  Andolink 
#1 · (Edited)
Now don't get me wrong - I like and listen to plenty of solo/chamber music. But usually I end up listening to them because I run out of composer's orchestral music. It's not like I think "Damn, I'm getting sick of all these orchestral colors. I want to listen to some monochromatic music." If I were to compose a piece, and I would ignore all the practical problems of having lots of different instruments, it would be very unlikely that I'd stick to just one instrument, or just string instruments or something. That would be almost like making the piece more dull on purpose.

Well, almost. Sometimes that might work as an effect, to deliberately restrict the timbral palette - similar how it might work as an effect to use black & white in film, to create a certain kind of mood. 99% of the time however it would seem that color film would be preferable to black & white. And the most important reason for films being black & white in the past was technical limitations, not a deliberate artistic choice. Similarly, though orchestral music is nothing new, solo/chamber music was in demand partly (I'd say largely) because of the smaller number of performers required. That was more of an advantage before recording devices, because the only way to hear music was to hear it performed live.

But as I said, I do listen to plenty of of solo/chamber music, because a lot of it manages to be interesting despite this "flaw". But I can't help thinking that a lot of it would be improved by orchestration, or added instruments, and that they currently feel a bit unfinished and sketchy. There's also composers like Ravel and Debussy who agreed with each other to compose orchestral music deliberately so that it would sound boring to Dim7, and that they would try to please Dim7 only when writing piano music. And there's also chamber music with relatively differently timbred instruments.
 
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#2 ·
Now don't get me wrong - I like and listen to plenty of solo/chamber music. But usually I end up listening to them because I run out of composer's orchestral music. It's not like I think "Damn, I'm getting sick of all these orchestral colors. I want to listen to some monochromatic music." If I were to compose a piece, and I would ignore all the practical problems of having lots of different instruments, it would be very unlikely that I'd stick to just one instrument, or just string instrument or something. That would be almost like making the piece more dull on purpose.

Well, almost. Sometimes that might work as an effect, to deliberately restrict the timbral palette - similar how it might work as an effect to use black & white in film, to create a certain kind of mood. 99% of the time however it would seem that color film would be preferable to black & white. And the most important reason for films being black & white in the past was technical limitations, not a deliberate artistic choice. Similarly, though orchestral music is nothing new, solo/chamber music was in demand partly (I'd say largely) because of the smaller number of performers required. That was more of an advantage before recording devices, because the only way to hear music was to hear it performed live.

But as I said, I do listen to plenty of of solo/chamber music, because a lot of it manages to be interesting despite this "flaw". But I can't help thinking that a lot of it would be improved by orchestration, or added instruments, and that they currently feel a bit unfinished and sketchy. There's also composers like Ravel and Debussy who agreed with each other to compose orchestral music deliberately so that it would sound boring to Dim7, and that they would try to please Dim7 only when writing piano music. And there's also chamber music with relatively differently timbred instruments.
My thoughts exactly.
 
#6 · (Edited)
Other? If I am listening to a string quartet, I don't find myself wishing for more colors. The only time this syndrome might set in for me is with music for string or wind soloists (yes, even Bach), or music for harpsichord, although it rarely comes up since I tend to listen to such music in small doses anyway.
 
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#23 ·
Other? If I am listening to a string quartet, I don't find myself wishing for more colors. The only time this syndrome might set in for me is with music for string or wind soloists (yes, even Bach), or music for harpsichord, although it rarely comes up since I tend to listen to such music in small doses anyway.
Yes, I'm with Ed on this one. A 45-minute harpsichord recital is about all I can take.
That said, I offer you an enticing 5-minute morsel of harpsichord excellence à la Ligeti:
 
#9 ·
Bear in mind that many of us might have rated it as less than one star :devil:

In response to your OP (and I may be very wrong, but ....) your position may change when you have more experience and understanding of classical music. Different types of music have different characteristics.

A Schubert solo song with piano accompaniment would not be anything like the same if it were to be transposed to a four-voice choir with an orchestral accompaniment ... and similarly, a composer may often chose a particular genre for deliberate reasons that transcend the requests of the commission (if indeed the piece had been commissioned).
 
#8 ·
I have always preferred the the relative simplicity and clarity of line and texture in chamber music (and music for solo instruments) to a full orchestra (Mahler, Strauss and Bruckner excepted, obviously).

And there is the added factor of my increasing hearing loss - I often can't really tell what's going on in the different sections of an orchestra.

So - it's a 'No, no, no...' from me too.
 
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#11 ·
"Agree with what I said?"

What a great subject for a poll. Pity you have to connect it something about music.;)

Seriously though...you are asking a serious question too, aren't you?...I'm happy with just orchestra or piano. I haven't yet warmed to the attractions of the small ensemble, despite owning all LvBs quartets.
 
#13 ·
There's also composers like Ravel and Debussy who agreed with each other to compose orchestral music deliberately so that it would sound boring to Dim7, and that they would try to please Dim7 only when writing piano music.
Which is ironically the most colourful music in the orchestral repertoire. Really, there must be a genetic thing going on that makes some people completely deaf to that kind of orchestral writing. Have you tried the piano renditions?

 
#15 ·
Apples and oranges, in a sense.

The "colors" capable from an orchestra (!) depend largely upon the variety of the instruments. A typical Mozart-sized orchestra is incapable of all the colorations available from a typical Mahler-sized orchestra. So, does this mean the smaller orchestra is in some sense inferior?

Each instrument is capable of a near infinite range of "color", depending upon how one utilizes the instrument's possibilities. George Crumb certainly gets a few more "colors" from a string quartet (say with the piece Black Angels) than does Haydn, but that doesn't mean Haydn's quartets are somehow lesser. Or that one cannot prefer them to the works of Crumb.

"Color" can be illusive, and meaningless. Do the Bach solo violin sonatas need color effects above and beyond those that appear naturally from performing the pieces? Could Mahler or Ravel or George Crumb arrange these pieces to give them a greater quality by utilizing more colors?

One of the features I most admire in contemporary music is the striving for color, whether the pieces be for full orchestras, smaller ensembles, or solo instruments. But no work is invalidated because it lacks the farthest reaches of color.

So ....
 
#16 ·
No, I don't find the necessarily reduced sonic palette of the string quartet to be flawed compared to an orchestra. A large part of the limitations of any given piece for any number of instruments is attributable to two things: time and imagination. Time in the historical sense, there must be certain allowances made when comparing a piece of the 1720s with one of the 1900s, and so forth. Whether or not a composer of the former and a composer of the latter are evenly matched in intelligence or imagination is of course debatable, fruitlessly, at that, but can it be said that Zelenka offers a broader array of colours in his Sinfonia a 8, ZWV 189 than Webern in his Fünf Sätzen, Op. 5 simply because he has a larger instrumentation?

My point in bringing up Webern, and really I may well have brought up Ravel just as easily (see his String Quartet and his Piano Trio), is that his timbrel imagination allows him to work with a wide range of colours simply because, though he is working with a small ensemble and miniature forms, his thinking remains large, has in fact grown palpably since the Passacaglia, Op. 1. Take Zelenka out of the equation altogether (sorry, Jan!), does the string orchestra version of Op. 5 outshine the original?
 
#18 ·
I don't know what to say. I usually listen to orchestral music for the variety of tone colors. With the number of musicians playing there is a "weight" (for lack of a better word) to the sound.

I usually don't listen to chamber music because of the absence of that weight. Also, I can't listen to the same timbres for an extended length of time. I keep expecting the tone colors to change, because I'm accustomed to the changes in orchestral music, and when they don't change, I get bored. Spare me the string quartets, piano trios, piano sonatas, woodwind quintets, etc. Eventually I will get bored with those combinations of timbres, and the light weight.

However, if you were to present me with chamber music that has a wide variety of timbres, I'm interested. Ravel's Introduction and Allegro, Debussy's Sonata for Harp, Flute & Viola and some of Stravinsky's chamber pieces interest me because of their offbeat combinations of instruments. There's enough variety of tone color to keep my interest. (Does anyone knows of a piece written for WW 5tet, String 4tet, and Harp? Maybe throw in a marimba or xylophone? That would pretty much cover all the bases and keep my interest! Such a piece could be easily be adapted to an orchestra with a full string section.)

Maybe that's reason in itself for me to start writing again! :rolleyes: (But I doubt it.)
 
#20 ·
Other.

The subtleties of a slightly more limited palette is not a flaw. There are plenty of colors to be found in chamber music. They're just not in your face. I used to feel the same about orchestra vs. chamber but my tastes have expanded. Now I have perhaps triple the amount of music to enjoy.
 
#21 ·
At the heart of chamber music is the individual in conversation with other individuals. The solo instrument is the individual player's voice, and chamber music is the individual's opportunity to speak in his own voice to and with others who do likewise. The personal nature of this is diminished more or less in proportion to the size of the ensemble, and is entirely lost when music is played several individuals to a part. I don't think of chamber music mainly as the pursuit of a different sonority from orchestral music - although that may be one objective of the composer - but as an opportunity for the most sensitive and personal kind of interpretive expression possible when people play together, and for the most meaningful musical relationship between them. This is the way performing musicians feel about it, and the reason why orchestral musicians are always seeking others with whom they can play chamber music.

As a listener, I feel greatly privileged to be able to listen in on these musical conversations, and their "voces intimae" are some of the most beautiful and moving sounds I know.
 
#37 · (Edited)
Doesn't the conductor stand to the orchestra as the keyboard player stands to the keyboard? There can be "musical conversations" in symphonies just as there are in a good performance of a keyboard fugue.

This is what I feel about some of Harnoncourt's recordings for example.

Re the initial idea, most serious instrumental performers can bring out colours in their instruments by how they form the notes, though the colours may not be in your face, you need to develop an acuity and sensitivity to appreciate them. This may not be true for harpsichords (apart from mechanical stops), I'm not sure. I hope some harpsichordist reads this and comments.
 
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#24 ·
That's odd. I counted...- wait a minute, you can't vote for yourself!?

I didn't vote because I wasn't sure I understood the question (or I was too quick trying to make a silly joke to read properly) but I posted an observation. I'm not sure whether I'm a 'yes' or a 'no'.
 
#29 · (Edited)
I think that the timbre in the string sextet version of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht is more interesting than the timbre in the string orchestra version. In the string orchestra all the individualities of each string instrument get blurred together to create...well, the sound of a string orchestra. In the sextet version though, you can retain that individual sound.

Also, I think the connection between musicians in a chamber group is stronger than in an orchestra (or larger group of musicians) and that in itself brings in its own qualities.

Yes, you can get fascinating timbral effects from a large orchestra which perhaps you can't get from a string quartet, but I see it as just one aspect of music and not as a limit. :tiphat:
 
#32 ·
I think that the timbre in the string sextet version of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht is more interesting than the timbre in the string orchestra version. In the string orchestra all the individualities of each string instrument gets blurred together to create...well, the sound of a string orchestra. In the sextet version though, you can retain that individual sound.

Also, I think the connection between musicians in a chamber group are stronger than in an orchestra (or larger group of musicians) and that in itself brings in its own qualities.

Yes, you can get fascinating timbral effects from a large orchestra which perhaps you can't get from a string quartet, but I see it as just one aspect of music and not as a limit. :tiphat:
Certain pieces adapt well to arrangement for larger or smaller forces. I'd put Verklaerte Nacht among them, though I slightly prefer the chamber version. But the effect of massed strings is radically different from that of individual ones, and string quartets arranged for string orchestra have never sounded right to me. Composers know how to adapt their musical thinking to different ensembles, and the string quartet is a very distinctive, very transparent ensemble, in some ways the essential chamber ensemble, for which composers seem to reserve ideas of an extremely focused and intimate character. The expressive qualities of those idiomatically conceived ideas are vitiated and distorted by being inflated and depersonalized. I've heard Beethoven's late quartets played by string orchestras and been horrified at the violation of their essential character. Certain composers' quartets might adapt better than others, but why do it at all?

Works for larger ensembles might work better in such arrangements. Tchaikovsky's string sextet Souvenir de Florence sounds all right with string orchestra. On the other hand, Mendelssohn's great Octet loses an essential lightness and transparency. Surprisingly, for me, the string chamber music of Brahms, which is sometimes said to be "orchestral" in its density and weight, is revealed to be true chamber music by attempts I've heard to play it with massed strings.
 
#41 ·
Chamber music means intimacy. Think Mozart's great clarinet quintet.
 
#43 ·
Bartok's SQ's arranged for string a orchestra - now that would be a terrible idea! The punch and rasp of solo strings is very essential for them. But this is a separate issue from "varied tone colors". The OP was a bit poorly worded in that regard - a sextet for piano, cello, violin, flute, harp and trumpet would be chamber music but most certainly not "monochromatic" and music for a string orchestra isn't terribly "colored" on the other hand. So it's not actually about solo/chamber vs orchestral really.
 
#46 ·
Sometimes less is more.
 
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