Unusual instruments
in the orchestra
by
Arthur Butterworth
It has become almost de rigueur
for young composers to write for
a massive percussion section in their
snazzy, very up-to-date orchestral scores.
There is even a feint suspicion that
one of the requirements of those generous
commissioning fees is that the score
shall be "modern", not fuddy-duddy and
old-fashioned. This seems to imply that
the more complex the percussion element
is the better the work will be received
by the musical intellectuals: those
who promote the concert, conductors,
impresarios, agents, funding bodies,
arts associations and such like. For
the most part professional critics generally
go along with this fashionable requirement
as well, not wanting to be found behind
the times by their peers. However, something
Richter remarked about a century ago,
when Wagner, Liszt and the then "new
music" of those days was all the rage,
is worth remembering: "The greater the
number of staves the fewer the ideas".
There was then, probably in a parallel
way to today, the rivalry of opinions
concerning style: the new versus the
old. The new, dashing romantic style
of Liszt and Wagner with its advanced
and colourful harmonies and the exuberant
modern notions of exploiting what the
orchestra could achieve technically
to impress and over-awe the listener
- and of course the blasé, bored
critics.
Some high points were reached in the
wake of Wagner: Strauss, and Mahler,
obviously, and indeed a host of others,
not necessarily all Teutonic. In the
UK Elgar was not left behind in the
ways of sophisticated, dashing orchestration.
Parry and Stanford must indeed have
seemed rather pale by comparison. However,
there was something of a reaction brought
about by the severe conditions after
the First World War; the huge gargantuan
scores gave way to more slimmed-down
things. The out-size orchestra of around
1910 perhaps became less de rigueur,
just like fashions in other things:
clothes, furnishings, architecture and
the arts in general. But taste and fashion
cannot stay the same for ever; change
is inevitable. One of these changes
has certainly come about in the present-day
outlook on the orchestra - let us not
use the word "contemporary" for that
has often come to imply a rather too
narrow and very specific meaning which
perhaps it ought not really to possess.
With the ever ongoing research and
exploration of what musical instruments
might be expected to do; abetted by
instrument makers bringing out newer,
more efficient models, it has been inevitable
that composers have taken advantage
in every way that fertile imagination
has led them. Whatever the later nineteenth
century brought about in the field of
wind and brass instruments, the past
hundred years or so has now done for
percussion. There just could be something
of a cultural dilemma here - how "musical"
can percussion instruments really be?
However, this is no place to get involved
in such an emotive question. Maybe some
other time, or some other person to
investigate, but certainly not this
writer just now! For the moment perhaps
it ought to suffice to remember what
Richter said about staves and ideas.
The number of exotic percussion sounds
- not to mention the visible display
created at the back of the concert platform
- can often make for a thrilling experience,
so the question might be asked: "What
happened to all those exotic new-fangled
wind instruments that seemed to spring
up like toadstools on the lawn in a
wet autumn?"
Note though, that strings - being so
perfect a means of musical expression
- have not been improved on since baroque
times, and are still with us as ever
they were.
It is worth considering some of them:
There have been a variety of flutes,
and indeed there still are, although
only two of them are looked upon as
in any way 'standard' - the concert
flute and the piccolo. These were newcomers
way back in Bach's time when the then
standard flute was what we now call
the 'recorder'. So why did the modern
flute - almost invariably of metal instead
of wood - oust the recorder? The answer
might be simple enough: in the growing
sonority of a large ensemble of players
- the orchestra - the older recorder
was far too gentle and could hardly
make itself heard against the rest of
the wind band. The flute however, has
other family members: the alto flute
- earlier in the 20th century wrongly
labelled "bass" flute - and the true
bass-flute. The alto flute does appear
from time to time, more especially in
French scores than perhaps anywhere
else; but it has to be acknowledged
that its sound is all-too-readily submerged,
so that when its colour is sought by
composers, allowance has to be made
for its small and delicate voice. The
bass flute proper gives the impression
of being even more liable to being covered
up in ensemble. It seems then, that
apart from devotees who cherish these
two lower-pitched flutes especially
in chamber music, there might really
- let's face it - be little call for
them in fulsome orchestral situations.
The oboes of course have some bigger
relations too: the cor anglais, familiar
and enormously useful, its plaintive
voice quite powerful enough to hold
its own. The oboe d'amore mid-way in
pitch between oboe and cor anglais was,
in Bach's day a most treasured woodwind
voice, but, apart more or less, from
a handful of romantic French scores
- Debussy especially - it has been neglected.
Deeper still, the bass-oboe and its
very close German counterpart the heckelphone
- its inventor being Heckel the great
German bassoon maker of the late nineteenth
century. This is a true bass to the
oboe, being precisely an octave lower.
The clarinets have had a whole brood
of related instruments: apart from the
standard pair of Bb and A clarinets
- absolutely essential in the modern
orchestra. There is the bass clarinet,
also a standard instrument; the Eb clarinet
a higher-pitched version of the standard
Bb instrument. But there are and have
been others - for example the basset-horn,
familiar to Mozart, and the even deeper
contra-bass clarinet an instrument of
sepulchral depths and capable of a sense
of melodramatic menace - for example
in horror films. Some of these instruments
originated in France - the real home
of wood-wind evolution - and a few from
Germany - the inventions of Heckel just
mentioned.
One other deserves consideration: the
Sarrusophone, sometimes confused with
the Sousaphone. The Sarrusophone was
the invention of a French army bandmaster
- Sarrus - who devised this metal instrument
on the lines of a bassoon, but of course,
made of metal instead of the traditional
wood. The Sousaphone is something entirely
different: in reality an American invention
- J.P. Sousa, the march king - really
a brass tuba built in different, more
blatant, format. There have been many
other variations of brass instruments
since the coming of mechanisation in
the multifarious valve systems.
Why is it then, that some of these
imaginative developments have not been
more effectively exploited by composers?
The contra-bass clarinet is a case in
point. Even more so is the sarrusophone,
which Ravel at least, must have considered
superior to the contra-bassoon; and
this writer can vouch for this. The
contra-bassoon, such an imposing, even
fearsome-looking instrument, implying
immense bass sound and power, is often
a disappointment. Oh! If only it had
the powerful bass sound that its looks
suggest, but alas, it can be surprisingly
weak at times when it ought to be really
weighty.
On the other hand the sarrusophone,
perhaps because it is metal and has
a rather broader reed really does fulfil
a rich and sonorous double bass line
- for example in "Rapsodie Espagnole"
or "Daphnis & Chloe" (Ravel) - and
very tellingly in Bax's First Symphony.
So why have many of these extraordinary
instruments fallen by the wayside? It
has been suggested that some of them
do not fulfil a useful role because
they lack sonority and cannot compete
with the rest of the large modern orchestra.
In this category must fall the alto
and even more so the true bass flute.
Perhaps also the bass-oboe or heckelphone
come into this way of thinking, although
some solo and chamber works for these
instruments are coming to be known.
But the sarrusophone could surely be
a most worthwhile addition to the full
orchestral wind band.
The most impressive wind-band this
writer ever heard was the Band of the
Garde Républicaine on its visit
to London in 1989 (200th anniversary
of the French Revolution) playing a
programme of French revolutionary music
- ending with Berlioz. It included representatives
of all these unusual wind instruments.
Could the same happen at some future
time, to some of the now fashionable
- but how effective or not? - percussion
instruments which so many ardent young
whiz kid composers regard as "absolutely
the last word" and essential for their
modern scores. On the other hand will
the time come when the real heart of
musical expression, at least in the
imperishable mid-European classical
tradition, is acknowledged once again
to lie in classicism and the flawless
beauty of the basic string orchestra
when we grow tired of all the empty
razzamatazz of funky percussion?
Arthur Butterworth
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