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Orchestration Lecture Notes

Haydn · Class 3

Notes from the third class: a record of what we found in your exercises and in Haydn’s score.

These notes may contain solutions to class assignments, so please wait until you have finished your own work.

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We looked at: Symphony No. 63 in C major, La Roxelane, Hob. I:63 (c. 1779)

Third movement, Menuetto and Trio (exercise 3), in your orchestrations and in Haydn’s final version.

Horn fifths

The magic of the horn fifths: the sixth, the fifth and the third melt together, heard from the same overtone spectrum. The second horn takes on a diatonic character and melts into the first.
Generally no leading tone in the horns.
See the chart of horn fifths in the notes from Class One.

After the first repeat: the horns highlight a line

The horns can highlight a line that lies in the music but is not present in the piano score.
C three times: the root in C major, the third in A minor, a tritone to the F♯ in the bass. Each time less stable. Then it collapses to G.
The horns stay on C and show the energy it accumulates. The orchestra can do this; the piano cannot. Note the clarity.

Haydn, Symphony No. 63 in C major, Menuetto, after the first repeat: the horns (top staff) hold C in octaves for three bars while the harmony moves from C major to A minor to D over F sharp, then fall to G; an arrow marks C as root, third and tritone — Fig. 1 · Haydn, Symphony No. 63, III · horns on the top staff

Violas and the bass line

Violas like to double: the basses or the violins.
The same bass line in all sections. If the winds say the E is the lowest note and the strings say the C, the ear is confused. Not a good confusion.
Registers should be expressive. A high note should cost something: on the cello’s A string or in the bassoon, not in a viola that plays it too easily.

The cadence

The tension should be heavier than the resolution. The horns must therefore be on the dominant.
In a piano section, thin out, also at the cadence.

Simplicity

One idea, followed consistently, rather than several ideas in the same instrument. The simple solution is the best.
Orchestrate what is necessary. Do not fill blank spots because they are there.
A break in the middle of a phrase does not belong to the style.

The Trio: contrast

The Trio is the composer’s creative corner, in contrast to the minuet.
Think in texture: legato against staccato, bowed against pizzicato, woodwinds or no woodwinds.
Give a solo to one player. Do not double it.

Haydn’s Trio

Oboe solo on the theme, not doubled.
The bassoon on the bass line, marked solo: a reminder to a player used to hiding in the background.
Pizzicato in all the strings. The colours are not mixed.
The basses pick out the lowest notes of the bassoon as a line of their own.
A parallel sixth in the first violins. The second violins add texture, so it does not sound thin.
Written this clearly for one player, the music leaves room for small rhythmic variations and improvisation.

A folk dance

German and Austro-Hungarian folk dance, or allusions to it, made the music relevant to people. In its time it could provoke, like rock music in a modern score.
Keep the rhythmic features of the dance: the boots hitting the ground on one and two.
Inspired by folk music, not folk music itself.

Notation

Roman numerals I or II to end an a2.
Show clearly when the second horn is not playing. “A1” does not exist.
Any notation program can put cellos and basses on one staff, if only by renaming the staff. Playback is kindly forbidden anyway.

Score excerpt (fig. 1): Haydn, Sinfonia No. 63, ed. H. C. Robbins Landon, Kritische Ausgabe sämtlicher Symphonien (Vienna: Doblinger); scan via IMSLP. Annotations by Daniel Fladmose.

Daniel Fladmose · Composition and orchestration teaching

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