The Probert Encyclopaedia of Music

ORCHESTRA

Originally, an orchestra was a semi-circular space in front of a stage where in Ancient Greek theatre the chorus sang and danced. Today the term applies to a body of instrumental performers and also to the part of the theatre where they are positioned. The orchestra is faced by a conductor in the middle, who stands with his back to the audience, and the performers have set locations in front of him. The first violins are positioned at the front-left of the orchestra, the violas in the centre with the cellos to their left and the harp to the front-right, and other instruments simularly arranged with the percussion at the back and left and the trombones at the centre back and the tuba at the back-right corner.
The modern use of orchestral accompaniment to dramatic music was begun in Italy and France about the beginning of the 17th century, Monteverde of Mantua probably having most to do with its development. In his opera Orfeo, produced in1608, he employed an orchestra of thirty-six instruments, consisting of harpsichords, violins, viols, lutes, guitars, organs of wood, trumpets, flutes, and other instruments. Orchestral music gradually developed into a separate branch of music. Comparatively early, the violin became the leading instrument a position which it has maintained and subsequently all instruments of the viol class were discarded in favour of the violin,
viola, violoncello, and double bass. This family of instruments constitutes what is termed the
full-stringed band.
The different kinds of instruments used in the modern orchestra and their numerical proportion to one another are determined partly by the size of the combination and partly by the nature of the works to be performed. An example of a typical orchestra contains fourteen first violins, twelve second violins, ten violas, eight violoncellos, eight double-basses, one harp, three flutes, one piccolo, three oboes, one cor anglais, three clarinets, one bass clarinet, three bassoons, one contra fagotto, four horns, four trumpets and cornets, three trombones, one bass tuba, three kettledrums (also known as tympani), one side drum, one bass drum, one triangle, and one pair of cymbals. The manner in which the tones of the different instruments are blended or contrasted in an orchestral composition is termed orchestration or instrumentation. Orchestral music, apart from its use in connection with works of a dramatic nature, received little attention until the beginning of the 18th century. Amongst those most intimately associated with its development are Johann Sebastian Bach, Christoph Willibald Von Gluck, Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Hector Berlioz, Wilhelm Wagner, Johannes Brahms, Peter Tchaikovsky, Antonin Dvorak, and Richard Strauss.
Research Orchestra