Symphony Scores
Channing Arther
Up to this point you have looked at a variety of music for single instruments and for small groups of instruments. This week you will be looking at large orchestral scores, drawing on the skills you have already learned.
In the example in Figure 1, the woodwind are marked in yellow and the brass are marked in green. The strings, marked in red, are at the bottom in order from high to low. Sandwiched between the brass and strings are the percussion instruments and harp. You can see how this layout relates to the way an orchestra is usually seated in Figure 2.
Both of these signs show that these instruments are sounding simultaneously, and the whole group of staves is referred to as a system. If, on one page there is a section of music that only uses a few instruments, you may find two or more systems on the page separated by this symbol:
In the Mahler score you looked at in the previous section, numbers were used for this purpose; another alternative is for every bar to be numbered. Rehearsal marks are often placed at points where something important happens, so can help you to navigate complicated full orchestral scores.
Hopefully, in studying the score of the Arabian dance you looked for rests, dynamic markings, layering of textures and repeating patterns. If you were conducting a ballet, you would also need to pay careful attention to rhythm patterns and speed.
Different elements of the music are outlined in Figure 5. Take some coloured pencils and mark these elements up as if you were a conductor, perhaps identifying the instrument groups with colours, marking instructions for dynamics with a specific colour (blue, for example, as seen in Figure 5), and marking the most important melody and any repetitions that you see with a different colour. The instrument groups are marked in the same colours as the diagram of the orchestral layout you saw earlier. You can see the first page of the score in Figure 5.
Conductors follow the score too, but in a rather different way to what you have been doing. They have to learn the score so they can give direction to the players before they start to produce a particular sound. In performance, the score then becomes a memory aid, but marked up just as you have done to remind them about key landmarks. However, conductors will be reading, and thinking, several bars ahead of the sounds that they are hearing.
Finally the whole orchestra plays together in layers, with all the strings playing fast-moving notes, while the wind and brass play in chords, first in short notes and then in long sustained notes. After a brief silence, the horns play the motif on their own, to introduce a new melody played by the violins.
This new melody is then copied by other instruments, keeping its shape as it moves between different instruments. The other layers of sound are long sustained notes that create an accompaniment to the melody, and repetitions of the motif. If you were conducting this section, you would probably want to be aware of these different layers. This section ends with another passage that moves between chordal writing and a layered texture where one section of the orchestra is moving fast and another is playing chords at the same time.
You may have realised while watching the video footage about conducting that the score is only a representation of the music, and not the music itself. In jazz, the score is often only a starting point for performers.
However, scores of some kind are often the basis from which performers work. Looking at scores can help our understanding of the way composers of the distant past worked, and enable composers of today to transfer their musical ideas into a sounding reality. Those spine-tingling, toe-tapping musical experiences that we all have had, often start from a score.
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As the digital revolution continues to shake up the creative arts, more and more musicians are turning the proverbial page by switching from printed scores to iPads and other electronic tablets for concerts and rehearsals.
Duvall concedes that Eighth Blackbird has had a few minor issues with its iPads during concerts (usually due to user error), but any such glitches are far less of a problem than printed pages falling off a music stand or being forgotten entirely. If a tablet does break during a concert tour, the musicians simply grab one from their reserve stock and download all of their saved music from the cloud and just keep going.
John Williams is an American composer and conductor who has composed many of the most popular and recognizable film scores for movies during the last seven decades. He has won 52 Oscars in addition to the 25 Grammys, seven BAFTAs, and three Emmys that are on his mantle. His music has been described as brilliant and has been enjoyed by millions globally. It is dynamic, melodic, and symphonic. Even without the visual on-screen, we know where we were when we heard it for the first time. Some of his most recognizable scores are classics such as:
So far from most of the sheet scores I've read, a2 is used mostly in wood and brass instrument staves, while unis. (and on rarer occasion, tutti) is in string instruments. It is even possible to see all three in a single score.
The reason for the discrepancy is that there are generally far fewer winds and brass in an orchestra, and so the individual parts are usually numbered. Thus, you might see a part labeled with individual numbers (such as "1. 2." for different flute or oboe parts, for instance, or a marking such as "a 2" to indicate that they should play together.
Since for the most part such divisions do not happen in string parts (although there are some exceptions), it would not make sense to say "a 2" or "a 7" or whatever other number of strings are involved. Instead, they should play together, and for this purpose, "unis." can be used. On the other hand, "tutti" is used to end a passage previously marked for one or more soloists, usually for string or choral parts.
The second violins, for instance, are a section; they normally play together as a section. Many scores don't specify how many second violins are in the orchestra; they just expect there to be as many as the orchestra has.
When the composer needs this second violin section to change its behavior and split into two parts, the composer uses the label "divisi." This indicates that these two notes aren't being played as a double stop by each musician; the different notes are being played by different musicians.
On the other hand, traditionally, orchestral scores listed exactly how many woodwinds would be playing. The first and second flutes are two separate "sections," and the expected default behavior is that they would be playing separate notes. Each musician has his or her own part, that shows only his or her own notes on it.
In the orchestral score, to save space, these two parts are sometimes combined. "a2" is how we indicate that we are changing this default behavior; it lets the conductor know that the same notes are appearing in both flute parts.
"Tutti" is used for a different purpose though. Unison markings distinguish passages from those that are divided; "tutti" passages distinguish those from passages played solo or by a small ensemble. As 'loco' is employed to restore notation to normal after an 8va/8vb marking, unison is used to indicate the end of any divisi, whereas 'tutti' is used to indicate the end of any solo or small ensemble passage and where the full complement of players (or singers) is to chime back in.
'a2' also shows up in percussion parts. even when there is only one written part (snare drum, for ex.) a composer occasionally wants a second player to 'double' what is being played, either for volume or added color/texture. bolero is a good example. toward the end, a 2nd snare drummer is supposed to join in. (this is not always done, but it is in the score/part.) i think shostakovich also does this in symphony no.7. berlioz also does it on a tambourine part. (etc...)
During his tenure with the Utah Symphony, Maurice Abravanel became known particularly for his pioneering recordings of the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). In an effort to preserve and increase accessibility to Abravanel's conducting scores held in the McKay Library collection, we are digitizing them. Scans of the maestro's notated scores of the nine Mahler symphonies will form the backbone of the Abravanel Studio digital collection as it continues to grow.
It seems I have run across a very interesting page on my smart phone. Conductors and talented players talking about the importance of pacing a great piece of music. To thyself be true. I love and admire classical orchestras. You bring to us who listen a great joy to our lives. I bought a ticket to hear my first shostakovich in person. One of my favorites the #5. The conductor gustavo dudamel and the los angeles symphony. Located in los angeles at the fantastic looking walt disney concert hall. I love the upper mid balcony for its great sound and detail. I know it will sound just great. MY first visit there. from what I have heard about dudamel l know he can.handle this great piece of work with all the right pace and strength of emotion needed for such a beautiful symphony. at home I love my CD #5 version by the Cleveland orchestra on telarc maazel conducting. love reading your page. music listener.
The winning work will be performed alongside works by J.S. Bach, Benjamin Britten, and Yangfan Xu. We welcome works of all musical styles, but the work should be accessible to an audience that enjoys traditional orchestral repertoire, rather than another type of specialized audience.
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