The brass choir may be dismissed with comparative brevity, because methods of writing for it have changed on lines similar to those followed by the wood. In the early scores one finds that the trumpets were the most noticeable members of the brass, but in later music the horns are far and away the most important. It is possible to get almost any amount of richness, solidity, and variety of color out of an orchestra composed of the wood-wind, four horns, and strings; but if two trumpets and three trombones be substituted for the horns, the ingenuity of the composer will be severely taxed to prevent his work from sounding coarse in forte passages. One reason for this is that, when played moderato, horns blend perfectly with either wood or strings, and when played forte they become brassy in tone and can be made to give a good imitation of trombones. Let the reader note, when he again hears the prelude to the third act of “Lohengrin,” that the brass theme is played the first time by the horns, which sound like trombones robbed of their roughness. The second time the theme is heard the trombones enter and the tone at once becomes brassy. In fact, it may be said at once that the brassy quality of brass instruments comes out fully only when the tone is forced. When it sings moderato the brass choir is capable of the most beautiful effects of rich, organ-like sonority. One has only to recall as a perfect example of this the prayer in the first act of “Lohengrin,” one of the most effective of all modern pieces of writing for brass. When however, immense sonority is required, the fortissimo of the brass choir is the composer’s heavy gun.

The treatment of the trumpet parts in the works of Bach and Handel will be found to differ greatly from the modern manner of writing for them. In the first place, the instruments employed by those composers must have had mouth-pieces of a different kind from those of to-day, or else the players knew some things which ours do not. Both Bach and Handel wrote passages for the trumpet so high that contemporaneous musicians cannot perform them. But that is a fact of less importance to the reader of the present book than the general principle of the scoring. The old composers, then, wrote for trumpets in pairs and made them do a great deal of their work in octaves, except in some of the earliest scores, in which three trumpets were sometimes employed. Even Monteverde wrote for one clarino (a small trumpet), three trombe (the ordinary trumpet), and four tromboni. Handel used three trumpets in the “Dettingen Te Deum,” and Bach in the “Lobe den Herrn.”

Haydn used the trumpets, horns, and drums in the primitive style. The parts were written either in octaves or in sixths—occasionally in thirds—and on tonic and dominant chords, worked with the drums chiefly to enforce the tutti. Passages such as the following abound in Haydn’s symphonies:

It seems hardly possible to contrive a more hollow plan of writing than that which gives to five instruments only three notes of a chord (though the horn parts actually sound an octave lower), yet it is a method which survived till Beethoven’s time, and, so far as the trumpets go, even the mighty Ludwig made no improvement upon it. Mozart’s scores show a very slight advance upon Haydn’s. He more frequently gives three notes of the chord to the brass instruments, but he uses them in the same general way. Of course, these old composers were much restricted by the mechanical limitations of their instruments. They had the old keyless horns and trumpets, and not having the whole scale at their command, they had to write with much restraint. In the horn parts they were further compelled to remember that certain notes could be produced only in the “stopped” form, that is, by the use of one hand inserted in the bell of the instrument. These stopped notes differed wholly in quality from the open tones. This trouble lasted until the F valve horn was perfected within the present century. Before that, however, composers had begun to endeavor to give more variety to the horn parts. Weber and Beethoven both made admirable use of this, the most noble and expressive of the brass instruments, and the scores of Rossini also contain some excellent specimens of horn writing. Rossini, indeed, who was the son of a horn-player, may be said to have introduced a new style of writing for the instrument, treating it with great brilliancy as a florid solo singer. But the substantial principles of horn writing, as practised in the modern orchestra, began with Mozart, who used the instrument with much skill, especially in those scores which do not call for trumpets. Beethoven made more exacting demands upon the instrument, and there is no more effective horn passage in existence than the famous trio of the scherzo in the “Eroica” symphony. The passage is too long for quotation here, but is, of course, familiar to every music-lover. As an example of perfect writing for a solo horn nothing in symphonic music is better than the opening of the slow movement of Tschaikowsky’s fifth symphony.

The methods of employing horns are so numerous that it is not practicable to recount all of them. It may be said, however, that in small scores, which call for wood-wind, two horns and strings, these instruments are often used to form chords with either the wind or the strings. Two horns and two bassoons make very effective harmony; in fact, when the four instruments are played moderato it is almost impossible to distinguish the bassoons from the horns. The latter also blend excellently with clarinets or the low tones of flutes. In writing for four horns some composers give the two upper notes of the chord to the first and second and the two lower to the third and fourth, while others dovetail the parts by giving the first and third notes to the first and second horns. Of course, either method is subject to variation, as in a passage like this:

Here the dovetailing of parts is carried throughout, yet in the third bar the third and fourth horns double the fundamental bass in octaves.

The trombone is a very familiar instrument, and little needs to be added to what has already been said about it. There are slide and valve trombones. The former is the kind always employed in symphonic orchestras. The reader will recognize the instrument by the action of the player’s arm in moving the slide in and out. This shortening and lengthening of the tube of the instrument changes its key and thus enables the player to produce in open tones every note of the chromatic scale. The valve trombone is played with keys like those of a cornet. It is less brilliant and sonorous than the slide instrument. Trombones were employed as far back as Monteverde’s “Orfeo,” early in the seventeenth century, but there seems to have been no definite use of them till the time of Gluck. He thoroughly appreciated the majestic dignity of dramatic utterance of which the trombone was capable, and he used it with eloquent effect. Furthermore, he established for all time the custom of writing for trombones in three parts. After him, as Gevaert pertinently notes, the three trombones became a distinctive feature of dramatic scores, for the classic symphony found no use for their immense sonority till Beethoven called it to his aid in voicing the triumphant emotions of the finale of the Fifth Symphony. Nevertheless, the trombone is not necessarily an instrument to be used only in producing great volumes of tone. A beautiful example of its value in rich and subdued harmony, in company with other instruments, is to be found in the accompaniment to Sarastro’s grand air in Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” as is shown on the following page.

The three trombones, as in this example, usually play three-note chords, except when required to play in unison. The tuba fills out the harmony by doubling the bass part in the lower octave, or forming a four-part chord with the three trombones. There are tubas in several keys, but it is customary to write for the instrument without making any transposition. There is a fine tuba solo, in unison with the double-basses, at the opening of Wagner’s “Eine Faust” overture, and frequent examples of harmony for three trombones and tuba are to be found in the works of the Bayreuth master. In writing for the full brass choir alone a composer has the choice of several methods. He may give the melody to a trumpet or cornet, and use the other instruments for the harmony, or he may let a horn (or two horns in unison) take the melody. If he desires much force, he may give the melody to a trumpet and double it with a trombone. The natural method, however, is to let a trumpet, which is a good soprano voice, sing the air, while the other trumpet and three of the horns take the middle voices, the fourth horn and first and second trombones the lower middle voices, the third trombone and tuba the bass. Similar methods are employed where the brass joins with the rest of the orchestra in the thunder of a tutti fortissimo. The reader will find a most admirable example of this style of writing in the climax of the prelude to “Lohengrin.”

It should be noted that the brass choir offers certain possibilities of color both within itself and in combination with other instruments. Three trumpets are capable of independent harmony, as are four horns, and three trombones. Again, owing to the deep range of the horn, trumpets and horns may form a separate choir, or either trumpets or horns may be united with trombones. The entire brass band may be used with the wood, the strings being silent, or with the strings and without wood. Part of the brass may be used with part of the wood, as in the opening of the “Tannhäuser” overture, where two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons produce a complete and satisfying harmony. Weird and bizarre effects can be produced by combinations of contrasting tones. Perhaps there is no better example than this remarkable use of flutes and trombones in Berlioz’s “Requiem”:

These notes had never been written for trombones before, and the composer, whose knowledge of the capacities of instruments has never been excelled, wrote in the margin of the score: “These notes are in the instruments and the players must get them out.”

As I have already noted, the operatic composers, in their search after dramatic effects, invented many of the instrumental combinations afterward adopted by the composers of purely orchestral music. The scores of Mozart and Gluck, for instance, are rich in passages which make use of the harmony of trombones, and the reader who wishes to study such effects in their early form should note the accompaniment to the words of the Commendatore in the cemetery scene of “Don Giovanni,” to the solo and chorus, “Dieu puissant,” Act I., scene 3, of Gluck’s “Alceste,” the air “Divinités du styx” in the same work, and the chorus “Vengeons et la nature,” Act II., scene 4, of “Iphigenie en Tauride.”

All that the moderns can do with trombone harmonies they learned from Gluck, and by applying his use of dispersed chords to the whole brass choir they have produced new and noble orchestral colors. Where did Wagner learn such things as this, if not from Mozart and Gluck?

Not much needs to be added to that already written about the percussive instruments employed in the orchestra. The tympani remain the most important of these. It has been found that one player can perform upon three drums with little more difficulty than upon two, and hence composers now frequently score for three, and sometimes for four. It is not uncommon for large symphonic scores to call for three tympani together with bass-drum, cymbals, and other percussive instruments. Something has already been said about the methods of writing for tympani, but there is a little to add. It has been noted that the primitive manner of writing was to give one drum the fundamental note of the tonic chord, and the other that of the dominant, but previous to Beethoven’s day it was the invariable practice to write the tonic above and the dominant below, thus tuning the drums at the interval of a fourth. The other style, with the tonic below and the dominant above, making a fifth, was introduced by Beethoven. The same master saw the advantage of tuning his tympani in still other ways, and in the finale of the Eighth Symphony and the scherzo of the Ninth he wrote for them in octaves at their extreme compass (F to F). Again, in the beginning of the last act of “Fidelio,” he wrote their parts in A and E flat in a dissonant passage of much dramatic power. Weber followed Beethoven’s example and wrote for tympani in C and A in the incantation scene of “Der Freischütz,” and Wagner has made a similar use of the drums in the beginning of the third act of “Siegfried.”

In general, it may be said that until the close of the eighteenth century composers employed tympani only in brilliant passages, such as marches, overtures, jubilant choruses, or hymns of thanksgiving; and in these they were always heard with the trumpets. It was Beethoven who took the shackles from the expressive powers of these valuable instruments and showed how they could be made to utter notes of overpowering solemnity and mystery.

The bass-drum is frequently used in the orchestra either with or without the cymbals, and the latter are often heard without the drum. Both instruments are sadly overworked by noisy composers, yet they have their value. The military snare-drum is used in characteristic passages where a military idea is to be suggested. Tambourines and castanets are also used in appropriate places. The gong, which is said to have found its way into western Europe at the time of the French Revolution, when it was used as a funeral bell, found its way into the opera-house as an aid to music of scenes of death or terror, as in Meyerbeer’s resurrection of the nuns in “Robert le Diable.” It is now used occasionally by the symphonists in passages of portentous significance.

Bells came into the orchestra for dramatic purposes, and are employed in various ways, some of which are so familiar that it is barely necessary to mention them. Handel employed a whole chime in a passage in his “Saul,” and Mozart used a set of little bells in “The Magic Flute.” Meyerbeer has called for a single deep-toned bell to imitate the tocsin of the massacre of St. Bartholomew in “Les Huguenots,” and Wagner has used several in “Parsifal.” The latter composer has used the carillon (little bells) with fine effect in the magic-fire music of “Die Walküre.” The lover of orchestral music needs no special information about bells. They are capable of musical pitch, and their notation is in the treble or bass clef, as the case may be.

The xylophone is sometimes employed in music of an artistic sort. A most excellent example of its possibilities may be found in Saint-Säens’ “Danse Macabre,” where it is supposed to imitate the rattling of bones in the grim dance of Death.

Score-readers will often find the parts for those instruments of percussion which are without musical pitch, such as triangles, cymbals, bass-drums, etc., written not on a stave, but on a single line. The rhythm can be indicated satisfactorily in this way, and that is all that is needed.