Scoring Lightly

What are your ideas about scoring lightly? For example: Oboe, Bassoon, and Strings. On my horn concerto, I'm only writting it for two oboes, two bassoons, strings, and solo. Do you think thats okay? What are your views?

I love the idea - I think that it is much harder to accomplish something great with less than it is to use a Mahlerian style orchestra. The sense of accomplishment that you get from making a great piece of music out of fewer instruments is rewarding.

I personally refuse to place percussion in any concerto of mine, as I hope to give the soloist and orchestra the driving pulse. One example, my Piano Concerto No. 1, was scored for a small orchestra and I believe that I accomplished quite a bit with it. Reaching that small ensemble's fullest potential was one of my goals. Here is the scoring for the piece:

2 Flutes

2 Clarinets

2 French Horns

Solo Piano

Orchestral Strings

If you are curious about the work:

http://www.jbelelieu.com/work-piano_concerto_no1.shtml

I prefer to score lightly, because I don't like how many composers will include an instrument in the score and proceed to use it only sparingly. If an instrument isn't going to play a significant role in the orchestra, it's not going to be in my score. It's one of the reasons I dislike Mahler, while I admire Brahms for being able to produce a dense Romantic texture with very limited orchestration - he actually wrote for smaller orchestras than did Beethoven.

I think I did fine with a small orchestra with my 1st horn concerto, which was scored:

2 flutes

2 oboes

2 clarinets

1 bassoon

2 horns

2 trumpets

1 trombone

timpani

solo horn

strings

My second horn concerto, which I've recently started, is being scored slightly more heavily: as above, except that the orchestra has 2 bassoons, 4 horns, and 2 trombones. Still very much a chamber orchestra, though. For now, I'm not using any percussion other than timpani.