Last week I began discussing the evolution of the orchestra from just a few instruments playing together to this:
As you watch this again, there are things happening that the orchestra does that are common practice today, but there was a time when these elements were new and shocking. It took one family in one town to take the orchestra to the next level.
We last left off in the Baroque period. In addition to the instrumental improvements, the French composer Jean-Baptiste Lully wanted all his musicians to be uniform: That is, he made them dress alike. He also insisted on uniform bowings. That's right. Before Lully, string sections bowed however they pleased. After Lully, you get what the video shows: ALL the bows moving in the same direction at the same time. And it's so commonplace now, that even Renaissance groups playing in a true Renaissance style use uniform bowing. Look at the Mahler clip beginning at around 4:06. You get a shot of the full orchestra, and all the bows are moving in unison. Every string player has their downbows and upbows perfectly coordinated. Outside of the aesthetic effect, this is also good in terms of sound quality. A downbow has a different timbre than an upbow.
But the greatest influence in the creation of the modern orchestra took place in a far different place than Paris: The small town of Mannheim. When the Elector for the region moved from Heidelberg to Mannheim, he already had a large orchestra. In the subsequent decades, the orchestra grew even bigger, and in 1741/2, the Kapellmeister hired the man that changed everything: Johann Stamitz (June 18, 1717 – March 27, 1757). Under Stamitz, and his son Carl, (baptized 8 May 1745 – 9 November 1801), the orchestra hired all the best and finest musicians of Europe. The orchestra became known as the "Army of Generals". And with a group of virtuosi, composers were able to push the boundaries of musical performance further than ever before. How did they do so?
First, they expanded the role of winds in the orchestra. Before, they were usually doubling the stringed instruments, playing to emphasize passages. Now, there were extended solo passages for winds added. You can really see that in the music of Mozart.
Second, there were numerous performance practices developed. In addition to the "first stroke of the bow" developed in Paris, there were a number of things attributed to the Mannheim school.
So take a listen to this movement from one of the symphonies of Johann Stamitz:
Like it? It's a very typical "pre-classical" work, but done in the "Mannheim Style". So let's look for what makes it "Mannheim", shall we?
First, at :07, we hear tremolo in the strings. These are the Mannheim Birds. An effect designed to mimic birds flitting about. If you listen to Baroque music, you rarely hear tremolos. After Stamitz and Mannheim, it became commonplace.
Second, listen to the wind parts between 1:12 and 1:40. We hear the wind parts taking the dominant role. As the orchestra expanded and evolved, the winds became coeval with the strings, and not just an element of added color.
Third, listen to the strings beginning at :08. You will hear a slurred downward passage, with emphasis on the first note. Kind of a DEE-dah-dah sound. This is the Mannheim Sigh. This is an extension of a Baroque technique of putting more weight on the first note of two note descending passages. You can hear it most clearly at :30 of this clip:
More on Mozart later. But let's continue with Stamitz. Please listen to the previous Stamitz clip at :27-:34. You are hearing the famous Mannheim Crescendo. This is a full orchestra gradual crescendo, which was astounding in its day. Such a thing regularly brought people to their feet.
Now, there are not one, but TWO famous "Mannheim Crescendos". The second one is known as the Mannheim Roller. That crescendo took a sequential passage--that is, a passage that rose in pitch every time it is repeated--and paired it with an ostinato bass line--a repeated line--and then gradually increased in volume as the passage rose in pitch. Listen to the following passage beginning at :10
The low strings are doing a tremolo rhythm, and the upper strings and winds are playing a melodic fragment that gets higher each time it repeats.
The Mannheim School also developed the Grand Pause: An effect whereby the entire orchestra stops for a moment then continues with the same vigor. We will hear this in the Schubert clip at the end of the diary.
Finally we have the Mannheim Rocket. This is simply an arpeggiated chord moving up in rhythm. Here is the Finale of Mozart's 40th Symphony. The movement begins with a Mannheim Rocket.
I am beginning the transition to Mozart in the evolution of the orchestra because it is in Mozart that we see what the Mannheim School was able to produce. But the school has one more gift to the orchestra. A gift Mozart fell in love with. It was during the tenures of both Johann and Carl (Johann's son) Stamitz that a new instrument was added to the orchestra. I won't go into the details of its development (that would require a diary of its own), but I will suffice to say that Mannheim was the home of the first great virtuosi of the instrument. Here is what Mozart did for that instrument:
So by Mozart's time we have the modern orchestra set: 2 violin parts, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 bass, 2 flute, 2 oboe, 2 clarinet, 2 bassoon, 2 horn, with occasional trumpet and timpani, and on very rare occasions especially by the end of the 18th century, trombone.
Of course, things were still in flux, as many pieces in the Classical period did not use a full wind section. But by the end of Mozart's life, this was the standard set up. Now, many have called the work that Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven produced as the "Vienna School". And to an extent, the later works, especially of Schubert and Beethoven could warrant this label. But in its purest form, Mozart is a direct inheritor of all the Mannheim School produced.
It is worth noting that this was the Classical Period--the Age of Enlightenment, where great thinkers like De Tocqueville, Jefferson and Voltaire would all be in the same salons with Mozart, Stamitz, Salieri, and others. It was a time where reason, form, order, and structure were the norms everywhere.
So let's see where the orchestra is at the end of Mozart's life, shall we? Note that the following were written around 1820--right at the betwixt and between of the Classical and Romantic periods. The Rossini shows an example of what became known as a Rossini Crescendo: A descendant of the Mannheim Crescendo which involves taking a passage and building the crescendo by adding more of the orchestra with each repeat of the passage. And in both the Rossini and Schubert passages, we hear how the Mannheim School begins to evolve into the Romantic orchestra.
Next time: Mine is bigger than yours.