# How did the greats do it?



## paulguterl (May 12, 2010)

I was following along with the score for Brahms Symphony No. 1 in C Minor. As I was reading through a thought came to mind. 

We know that many of these great composers composed on piano. Lets take Beethoven for example. I hear his 5th symphony, and then I hear the piano arrangement, and it's easy to see how the arrangement came from the full score. 

Beethoven though, started on the piano writing it. So when he was working on it, which scenario is more likely (and lets take this as a general for all composers, as opposed to say JUST applying to Beethoven)

a) wrote the piece on piano and then orchestrated it, changing/adding as he saw fit to make it work for his vision. Perhaps evolving as it went along.

or

b) hear the entire thing in his head fully formed, orchestrated, arranged, etc., and simply used the piano to "check" his work as he notated it.

I ask, not only because I find these kind of things interesting, but in trying to branch out to writing for bigger instrument groups, I believe it would help to trace the thought process so to speak, of the ones I admire.


Also, as I'm sure it isn't one set way for each and every composer, if you know a bit about how a specific composer worked, feel free to share please.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Some of it will have been at the keyboard, but quite alot of it in the head. Beethoven left a lot of sketches, sometimes he let ideas germinate in his head for a long time before feeling he was ready to fit it into a piece. He once said to someone who asked him about how he thought about an idea that he saw it and imagined it from different perspectives, how it could transform and change itself into different forms by viewing the idea around from different angles. This is probably a secondary account from someone who knew him, but hopefully a true one.


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## nefigah (Aug 23, 2008)

I know your question was mainly to do with orchestration, but I personally think that having the notes figured out is the amazing part. I remember how awed I was at hearing a quote by one of the Bach children that said his dad J.S. could, upon hearing a melody, instantly compose a countersubject to it (forgive me if my terminology is off). Beethoven composed some incredible stuff without really being able to even hear it. And how Wagner wove all the leitmotives together into an epic whole in the Ring is unbelievable. 

The greats were, at the very least, geniuses.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Well obviously for orchestration a composer - I would guess - would have to hear how the piece sounds in their head (from their experience and learning), unless they have an orchestra living with them all the time.  Obviously it's different now as people can use computer to get an approximate sound of how things sound individually or together.


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## Jaime77 (Jun 29, 2009)

i do better when i have an idea, music or otherwise first, but sometimes ideas can emerge thru improvising at the piano, or improvising at the computer. if i already know the instruments i am writing for then the idea usually comes already 'orchestrated' - the timbre is part of it.


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## MJTTOMB (Dec 16, 2007)

Beethoven tended to be a revisionist, spending years and years on each work, constantly changing until he was satisfied.

Mozart wrote with a very methodical approach, writing out the melody and bass line of the entire work or section of a work in their entirely before going back and filling in countermelodies and middle voices.

In terms of orchestration, perhaps your best bet would be studying scores of pieces you find interesting, and taking note of specific techniques the composers utilize. Rimsky-Korsakov is widely regarded as one of the greatest orchestrators, somewhat the father of modern orchestration techniques.


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## nimrod3142 (Apr 25, 2010)

Edward Elgar started writing his "Enigma Variations" by trying to fit "Pi" into his music. Pi is usually approximated as 3.142 or as 22/7. Elgar used the scale degree 3142 for his first four notes. He then had to figure a way to include 22/7. He did that by alternating two quavers and two crotchets in the first two bars (2 and 2 -> 22.) Then after the first 11 notes he added two "drops of the seventh." (11 x 2/7 = 22/7.) All of that in the first four measures. He gave some enigma hints in the 1899 program notes but after no one had guessed it for 30 years, he wrote three more sentences for release of his pianola rolls in 1929. He was 72 years old and in ill-health. His three sentences refer to the "2 and 2," the drop of the seventh in the 3rd and 4th bar" and also to Bar 7 (of 22/7.) This should be enough to confirm Elgar's enigma, and to reveal how he went about composing his "Variations on an Original Theme."


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