Quote:
Originally Posted by Euler
I don't hear any problems - according to Rimsky-Korsakov, the flute and clarinet can play very rapidly, the oboe and bassoon are not quite as agile, and the horn is not at all agile.
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Don't believe everything you read, especially when it's over a hundred years old and for the greater part, extremely dated.
The oboe and bassoon are quite agile, especially in regards to large leaps. The horn is not as stodgy as one would expect, either.
I realize the Rimsky-Korsakov text is attractive because it's free and to a point accurate, but there are many better options out there for the serious (and not dead) composer. An excellent instrumentation text is Alfred Blatter's "Instrumentation and Orchestration", or Kennan's "Technique of Orchestration". I can't recommend Piston's "Orchestration" because I find his ideas extremely dated, boring, and I feel he writes like a sanctimonious jerk (I could use stronger language...). Forsyth's "Orchestration" is a dull read, and like Rimsky-Korsakov's book, is old, dated, and conservative.