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Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/25/2012 in Posts

  1. Orchestral string sections will almost always assume divisi unless explicitly stated otherwise. There are several reasons why, chief amongst them tuning, as a pro band will aim to have every instrument on exactly the same pitch. This is particularly true of harmonics, and they are more difficult to balance in a chord with an open string too. One would only write this as a triple stop in a solo part, and then not expect the player to sustain all three pitches equally, especially at this very quiet dynamic which would not be achievable were this asked for tutti. The reason why the orchestrator wrote for both violin sections to divide by three is to avoid an overbalence of one note (otherwise only one section is divided and the other all play the same pitch) and it is easier to do this than expect two sections to suddenly organise themselves into three in the middle of the music. So you can see it is not worth the negligible difference in tone quality to risk bad tuning, imbalance and lack of control in the section, when a much more balenced tone which is easier to play can be achieved. If an orchestrator doesn't have at least a reasonable knowledge of how to write for strings and how players will perform things they won't be very good at their job. John Williams does his own orchestrations (usually) and historically many film composers such as Korngold, Hermann and Walton too. Also 'writing 80 minutes of music in 6 weeks, and it being decent' should be weighed against the speed at which Mozart and Handel wrote operas, and Shostakovich completing his Fifth Symphony in under two months. These examples are not even accompaniment background music either, but highly original works that have to stand up on their own.

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