The Orchestra

ISBN: 0393002195

Author: Bekker, Paul

Condition: Used

Orchestral music is the most popular of all musical forms. Highly evolved, it also exhibits special characteristics according to time and place. This book tells the story of the different generations of orchestral types, from the beginnings of the classical orchestra of Haydn to the mechanistic orchestra of Stravinsky and Schoenberg.Each period of orchestral history had its own ideal of sound, and it was not the creative musician alone but also the audience he wrote for who together determined the ideal of the time. The author points out the particular conditions from which the ideal grew and he marks the connections between ideals of different epochs, showing in what ways they were related and in what ways independent of each other. The composers themselves, their works, and the conductors too are involved in this presentation, but the aim is always to keep before the reader an understanding of how each type of orchestra belonged to and was justified by its own time. Mr. Bekker's scholarship and his original and provocative ideas make this analysis an extremely valuable contribution to musical literature.