jasper81

I can hardly name one quartet "best." Every standard quartet I've heard has been incredible. However, here are a few personal favourites: Britten no. 1 Ravel Janáček no. 2 Borodin no. 2 Shostakovich no. 11 And, of course, Bartók no. 4

I am all about the Debussy Cello Sonata. Someday I'll have to find a pianist to play it with. The Shostakovich sonata is lovely too, but I can't play it to save my life. One of these days...

You can start by writing everything out on piano first, then orchestrate it; many excellent composers (Grieg and Stravinsky come to mind) have done this. Alternately, you can put each orchestral section on a separate staff, in which case you'll only have four or five lines to think about at once instead of thirty. I find writing directly on an orchestral score gives me horrendous option anxiety ("ooh, I'm going to make the clarinets play something - no, let's use the oboes - wait, what on earth are they going to play - ooh, flutes!"). I find planning ahead is more essential in orchestral music than it is in chamber music. Sketch out where your ideas are going to go in advance so you don't get bogged down in which instrument is going to do what.

Hector Berlioz would like a word with you.

This is true. If you consult biographies of composers (or even look at their Wikipedia pages), you'll find that most composers throughout history have been concert performers (Mozart and Rachmaninoff), conductors (Mahler and Berlioz), or music professors (Schoenberg and Hindemith).