Whence originated the custom of calling the collection of wooden wind-instruments used in the modern orchestra “the wood-wind,” I am quite sure I do not know. It is still more common among musicians to speak of them simply as “the wood,” notwithstanding that the stringed instruments played with a bow are also made of wood. It is a convenient term, and its meaning being pretty generally understood, only a purist in language would object to its employment. The “wood,” then, in the modern orchestra consists of flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons. Of these instruments the flute is the oldest, and was the first to be used in those indiscriminate assemblies of instruments corresponding to orchestras in the early days of the art. The flute was used in ancient Egypt, and, for the matter of that, so was the oboe, which found its way into the orchestra at least as far back as Beaujoyeux’s “Ballet Comique de la Reine” (1581). Everyone knows a flute when he sees it, and is acquainted with its tone, but I have learned by experience that very few persons know anything about the other wood instruments.

Yet their importance in the modern orchestra cannot be overestimated. Half the tone-coloring of our symphonic works and operatic scores depends upon skilful combinations of the tone-tints of wooden wind-instruments either with one another or with other members of the band. It is almost wholly in the direction of variety of combination that the art of writing for wood-wind has developed. In the early days, before a system of enriched instrumentation had been developed, it was the custom to treat the wood-wind parts without any design that affected the display of their coloring qualities. Sebastian Bach’s scores, for instance, show a complete absorption of the polyphonic style. He regarded his instruments as so many voices, and he treated them as such. Each part was written in a manner essentially melodious, and related to the other parts strictly in contrapuntal style. The conception of purely orchestral effect did not find birth in the mind of Bach. He was too entirely occupied with the development of the polyphonic subject to discover the possibilities of mixed tone-tints. Furthermore, he was not sufficiently imbued with a feeling for the harmonic style—the style in which a leading melody is supported by a subsidiary accompaniment founded on chords, as in our songs. This is the style on which our symphony rests, but it was foreign to Bach’s genius, which was fundamentally fugal.

Hence, Bach did little toward developing the combining powers of the wood-wind. As one writer has excellently said: “He preferred to employ wind-instruments for the purpose of enlarging his original design, rather than that of strengthening or decorating it. When he added a flute or an oboe to his score, he loved not only to make it obbligato, but to write it in such wise that it should form a new real part. Hence, even in his regularly constructed arias, the voice is scarcely so much accompanied by the various instruments employed as made to sing in concert with them, the score containing as many real parts as there are solo voices or instruments introduced into it.” Dr. Parry, in his “Evolution of the Art of Music,” in speaking of the difference between instrumentation of this kind and that of a later date, says: “In the instrumentation of the great masters of the earlier generation, the tone-qualities seem to be divided from one another by innate repulsion; but in the harmonic style they seem to melt into one another insensibly, and to become part of a composite mass of harmony whose shades are constantly shifting and varying.”

Handel’s wood-wind is employed with greater variety than Bach’s. This was to be expected of a composer who, in the first place, was in closer touch with the public, and hence more likely to recognize and yield to the demand for effects. In the second place, Handel, not being secluded as Bach was, stood more forward in the march of musical evolution. He was an opera-writer, and this brought him into immediate contact with the harmonic style as practised by the Italian opera-writers. He learned from some of them, too, the use of grandiose mass effects. The application of these ideas to his instrumentation produced results far different from any conceived by the introspective and historically solitary genius of the great Bach. Handel used a larger orchestra than Bach, yet did many things in the same way. For example, he often wrote for his instruments in the polyphonic style, but in the accompaniments to his great choruses he wrote for several oboes in unison with the violins and a body of bassoons in unison with the basses. At other times he treated his wood-wind parts as figured ornamentation of the more simple string parts, and again he employed the strings and wind alternately, as modern composers do so frequently. Flutes he rarely used except as solo instruments, as in the “Sweet Bird” aria, and clarinets he did not have. But the idea of using some of the wind-instruments, as horns and trumpets, in pairs, had come into existence in Handel’s time, and it was not long before this plan was applied also to the wood-wind.

Its employment naturally began with the recognition of the inability of the wood-wind to play such intricate passages as strings could, and also of their power to sustain the long notes of supporting chords. These features of wood-wind writing existed even in the scores of Scarlatti and Lulli, but it was not until the harmonic style began to be clearly distinguished from the polyphonic in orchestral works that they became generally recognized. In the scores of Emmanuel Bach, the son of Sebastian, we begin to find wood-wind treated in the pure classic style. The chords, to be sure, are very thin, and the composer shows a “’prentice hand” at the dovetailing of his wind parts together so as to make a firm structure, but the skeleton of the modern form is there.

Haydn’s scoring shows a curious combination of Handelian ideas with later developments. The Handelian plan of strengthening string parts with wind parts in unison seems to have taken some hold of Haydn, for he rarely writes unsupported wood-wind passages in his symphonies. He keeps his first violins singing the melody most of the time, and gets variety by doubling them, now with flutes, now with oboes, again with bassoons. A wind solo is very rare. He shows similar weakness in writing for the wood-wind in its internal relations. His clarinet parts usually double those of the oboes or the flutes. There is a great deal of octave writing, and he seldom gets more than three real parts in his wood-wind. It is only because he so constantly employs the string quartet that his symphonic scores do not sound thin. For example, in a passage for wood-wind and strings near the beginning of the familiar symphony in D, the first flute, except in one chord, doubles the second violin at the octave above, while the second flute supports the principal notes of the melody, played by the first violins, at the octave below. The oboes in unison double the violas at the upper octave. The two clarinets in unison double the first flute an octave below. The bassoons and basses play in unison. Toward the end of the last movement there is a passage in which the wind plays sustained chords, and in this the wood is treated in a more open style of harmony. Haydn learned much from Mozart, however, and in the “Creation” and “Seasons,” his writing for wood-wind shows much greater freedom, and a decidedly more definite attempt to get at the tonal characteristics of the instruments.

There can be no question that Mozart’s orchestration shows a large improvement on Haydn’s, and it is, perhaps, easier for the amateur to discern this in his treatment of the wood-wind than anywhere else. Passages contrasting the whole wood choir with the strings are more numerous, and the combinations of wood with strings show more definite attempts to put new tints upon the symphonic canvas. One finds, for instance, in the G minor symphony the flute tone contrasted with the oboe, combinations of flute and oboe contrasted with bassoon, combinations of flutes, bassoon, and strings, and other effects which give life and variety to the instrumental coloring.

Nevertheless, a conventional manner of treating the wood-wind found its way into general use, and it prevailed until the romanticists, in reaching out for new forms and manners of expression, revolutionized the system of scoring. The old-fashioned way was to employ the four pairs of wood-wind instruments always in thirds and sixths. The flutes almost always took the melody and the next interval below it. The oboes either doubled the flutes in the octave below, or the first oboe doubled the second flute, and the second oboe took the next lower degree of the chord. The clarinets filled in the middle voices, and the bassoons played the bass, most frequently in octaves. The harmony was close, and the texture of this instrumentation was always solid, and, it must be admitted, at times muddy. This manner of writing is found in all Beethoven’s earlier works. For example, here is the opening of the first symphony, the horns and strings (pizzicati) also appearing in the score:

That is perfectly adapted to its purpose; but the chances are that a composer of to-day would have used three flutes, three clarinets, and three bassoons, and would have thickened the harmony by raising the clarinet voices and bringing the first bassoon up nearer the middle, thus:

Brahms followed Beethoven’s early style of scoring for wood, which, it must always be recollected, lies at the foundation of the art. An example from Brahms’s C minor symphony will show the modern writer’s adoption of his predecessor’s plan:

The modern style of writing for the wood-wind choir introduces more passages in contrary motion and a more dispersed harmony. The close chords of the classicists cannot be excelled for their purpose, but the romanticists had new aims and they took advantage not only of unusual tone-tints but of the increased richness brought about by using more voices and extending their chords. Beethoven’s symphonies show a rapid progress toward the modern flexibility of methods in writing for wood-wind. For instance, note the lovely effect of this piece of contrary motion in the Fifth Symphony:

As we advance through the pages of the master’s symphonies we find a constantly increasing flexibility in the treatment of the wood, until in the Ninth we meet with passages containing effects which, when closely examined, seem to be almost amazingly modern. Of course, one never finds in Beethoven’s scores any attempt to make an effect for its own sake. The master symphonist was altogether too busy in giving his thought expression to think of little tricks of instrumental dress. Because of his continence in this matter some modern commentators have expressed the belief that these symphonies would be improved if re-orchestrated according to contemporaneous methods. I presume that someone will eventually try the experiment, and then it will be discovered that Beethoven’s instrumentation was perfectly adapted to his musical ideas. On the other hand, a good deal of our modern music would stand revealed in its naked thinness if it were re-orchestrated in the austere style of Beethoven or with the sunny simplicity of the Mozartian manner. The extreme development of wood-wind writing as known in our day is to be found in the scores of Wagner. No one has surpassed his treatment of the wood in his earlier dramas, and the reader may accept Elsa’s entrance to the cathedral in Act II. of “Lohengrin,” and the exit of Elizabeth in Act III. of “Tannhäuser,” as complete expositions of writing for the unsupported wood-wind. In the introduction to the third act of “Lohengrin” appears this passage, which shows how Wagner could use his wood in relation to the rest of his orchestra:

The reader will at once see the open style in which the wood-wind parts are constructed. The horns serve to enrich and deepen the harmony, while the strings are used chiefly for a rhythmic effect. Weber’s scoring is full of admirable writing for the wood-wind, and for other fine examples I can once more refer the reader to Mendelssohn’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” music.

The immense variety of coloring to be obtained from the wood is due largely to its power of producing independent harmony. Owing to the large register of the clarinets, they can be used as either soprano or low contralto instruments, while the wide scale of the bassoons permits them to be treated as basses, barytones, or tenors. It thus becomes possible to write in full and euphonious four-part harmony for two flutes and two clarinets, two oboes and two clarinets, two flutes and two bassoons, two oboes and two bassoons, or two clarinets and two bassoons. Each of these combinations differs in color from the others. If now a bass clarinet be added, it becomes possible to give it the fundamental bass and to use the bassoons for middle voices. The addition of an English horn gives further possibilities. If the number of flutes, clarinets, and bassoons be increased to three of each, the composer has still more combinations. And when it is recollected that every one of these wind-instruments can be used as a solo voice, the range of variety becomes wider yet. But the reader must also bear in mind that the addition of horns and strings still further alters the tonal colors. In short, the wood-wind provides the most useful means of giving variety of color to an orchestral score, and all modern writing abounds in ingenious, surprising, and expressive effects made with the wood choir. Yet when the thunder of an orchestral tutti is required, there is no better way to write for wood than that of Beethoven’s symphonies.

I have said nothing yet in this chapter about the piccolo and the contra-fagotto. The piccolo is a much misused instrument, but it is capable of admirable effects, as may be seen in the storm in Beethoven’s “Pastoral” symphony, the magic-fire music in “Die Walküre,” or the “Dance of the Automatons” in Delibes’s “Sylvia” ballet. The double-bassoon, or contra-fagotto, allows the composer to carry the bass of his wood-wind choir an octave lower than the compass of the bassoon. The instrument is coarse in tone and not capable of performing rapid passages, but it has its value, as is shown by its employment in the last movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony or Brahms’s “Chorale St. Anthony” variations. A double-bass clarinet has been invented by a New York musician. I have not heard this instrument, but am told by competent judges that it is of high value. It carries the bass an octave lower than the bass clarinet, and is capable of great agility and of the finest gradations of tone. Richard Strauss, Weingartner, and other German musicians have promised to introduce it in future scores, and I dare say it will become a fixture in the orchestra. The great value of the clarinet color to the orchestra cannot be overestimated, and any increase in its range and intensity will surely be welcomed by composers.