# Orchestration in progress



## caters (Aug 2, 2018)

Here is my work in progress orchestration of the Pathetique Sonata:

https://musescore.com/user/50070/scores/5526550

Here I will go over my ideas and in particular, a detailed response I got that is all about how wrong my orchestration is.

Initial Ideas

Here is an image showing my initial ideas for the Grave section:









As you can see, in the blue section I wanted the woodwinds to be playing the melody and I was thinking of having the viola act as a high bass in that section but I decided against it. In the red section is where I wanted call and response between the low brass and the low woodwinds. Then in the green section there would be this buildup to an apotheosis. I initially thought of having a woodwind cascade in the final measure and I guess I still do with the flute starting it and the clarinet continuing it.

Most of my initial ideas for the Grave section I decided to do. For the Allegro, I got some feedback that my initial idea for the octaves(alternating instruments in pairs) would really offend the cellists and bassoonists with constant offbeats. So I decided to have that pulsing rhythm but in the same octave which freed up the cellos and bassoons. Then I got feedback saying that my harmony was wrong so I fixed that.

Detailed Response

And that all leads to this detailed response that I got today saying that my orchestration is wrong and telling me a lot of things that were wrong with it. Here is the response:



> Very unbalanced and unidiomatic orchestration. There's a lot to go through here, but let's start with the first chord. The woodwind writing is horrible. The flute is in it's lower mid-register and will not be heard over the massive forte of the other instruments. The oboe is way to low in it's register to succesfully play the C in piano. It is very unclear how many of each instrument you have so that has to be clearly written out (my concern is primarily the clarinets and horns). The chord is voiced very badly with very thick harmony at the bottom and rather sparse higher up. Try to write tutti chords according to the harmonic series.
> 
> I don't understand at all why you want to double the melody line with the flute. And you don't use the piccolo as it's own instrument but rather as an extension of the flutes register. I also don't understand the need for bass clarinet, contrabassoon and alto trombone. You can do just fine without them.
> 
> ...


Now I gave a detailed response back about why I have it this way. Here is my response back:



> I can't really change the instrument names in the text in Musescore 3 unlike how I could in Musescore 2. Also, what do you mean the harmony is thick below and sparse above? Are you just saying that because I have 3 bass woodwinds on top of the double basses and cellos playing a bass role? Well, in measures 1-4, I decided to have it exclusively be woodwinds and strings. As for the inclusion of Contrabassoon, that is pretty much a requirement these days. Almost every orchestra has 1 bassoonist playing contrabassoon. Also it gives me an instrument to double with the double bass when I am not in a brass heavy section.
> 
> Including bass clarinet makes it possible in an orchestra with just 3 bassoonists to play a 4 note bass chord in the woodwinds. I also use it for when the bassoon needs a break as you will see when I update this score to include the second Grave section. And alto trombone makes it possible for me to have a trombone and tuba chorale like what starts in bar 5 which is analogous to the sixteenth note chords in the bass in the piano score without there being any difficult notes for any of the trombonists.
> 
> ...


Thoughts on response

I haven't gotten a response back yet but here were my thoughts on it as I read the response(response in quotes, my thoughts in bold text):



> Very unbalanced and unidiomatic orchestration.


*What else would you expect? I am taking the piano score and orchestrating it. Of course its going to be unidiomatic for orchestra. The Liszt transcription of Beethoven's 5th is unidiomatic for piano but that doesn't make it a bad score. It is far from being a bad score. In fact, it is possibly better than the original orchestral score that Beethoven wrote.*



> There's a lot to go through here, but let's start with the first chord. The woodwind writing is horrible. The flute is in it's lower mid-register and will not be heard over the massive forte of the other instruments.


*At least I'm not putting a forte dynamic in the first octave of the flute. That would be impossible, even for an advanced flutist. And you don't often hear the flute as a separate entity in tutti chords anyway, just listen to Beethoven's Eroica symphony. Do you hear the flute as a flute sound in the beginning tutti chords of the first movement? Probably not. But it would sound different if the flute wasn't there. All the woodwinds add color to the predominant strings and brass but aren't really heard over the massive forte of the other instruments. Are you saying that my flute part is worse than Beethoven's because the flute won't be heard over the massive forte? Because Beethoven's flute part isn't heard over the massive forte either in his Eroica symphony.*



> The oboe is way to low in it's register to succesfully play the C in piano. It is very unclear how many of each instrument you have so that has to be clearly written out (my concern is primarily the clarinets and horns).


*At least I am not going lower than piano in dynamics here. Pianissimo is hard on the oboe. About the same amount of pressure is used to play pianissimo on the oboe as is used to play fortissimo on the clarinet, mainly because of the double reed vs single reed difference. And are you suggesting that I raise the entire oboe part up an octave in the Grave? As for the number of each instrument, that is indeterminate at this point. I have no idea if I will be premiering this with a smaller, less experienced orchestra like a high school orchestra or if I will be premiering this with a professional but still local orchestra like the Columbus Symphony Orchestra. And what if I wrote it for 6 horns but I only have 4 horns in the actual orchestra? Who would take the 5th and 6th horn parts? 2nd and 3rd clarinet? 2 trombones?*



> The chord is voiced very badly with very thick harmony at the bottom and rather sparse higher up. Try to write tutti chords according to the harmonic series.


*Without using horns and trumpets in the first 4 bars of this there is nothing I can really do to improve it without simply not having the bass woodwinds which I would rather not do or using the piccolo which I was told was unfit for the Grave. And writing this C minor chord according to the harmonic series in all the instruments playing it is simply impractical. The flute would be like what, 2 octaves up from where it is now? Given that it is in the second octave already, that would mean that I essentially would be writing the flute part in the piccolo staff. Also, you can see writing according to the harmonic series in the C minor chord if you look at the cellos and double basses. The cellos being an octave up from the lowest double basses in terms of pitch and the double basses themselves being divisi.*



> I don't understand at all why you want to double the melody line with the flute. And you don't use the piccolo as it's own instrument but rather as an extension of the flutes register.


*Are you talking about the first violins being doubled with the flute? That makes sense if you consider the fact that the first violins are in general the highest strings at any given moment and the flute is the highest of the woodwinds that doesn't transpose up or down an octave. As for the piccolo not being used as its own instrument, look again at the apotheosis. The piccolo while it may be doubling the flute, is an octave above the flute. That is enough for me to consider the piccolo to be doing its own role. As for the registral extension of the flute with the piccolo, it all has to do with which notes are difficult and which ones are impossible on the C concert flute. If the notes are just difficult, I consider lowering the flute by an octave. If that leads to the lower notes being impossible, then I resort to putting the difficult and/or impossible notes in the piccolo and then when it goes into the easier range, I have the flute playing again. And besides, this also gives the flutist a well needed break to take a deep breath before it starts playing again.*



> I also don't understand the need for bass clarinet, contrabassoon and alto trombone. You can do just fine without them.


*If I am writing for orchestra, a contrabassoon part will be expected unless it is for an orchestra that doesn't have a contrabassoon. The bass clarinet has a more predominant role in the second Grave section where it plays the bass notes while the bassoonist gets a break after playing the very lowest note possible on bassoon. It also makes it possible to play a 4 note chord in the bass woodwinds if there are only 3 bassoonists in the orchestra. Alto trombone extends the range of the trombones to higher notes that are typically trumpet pitches. So I could use the alto trombone in call and response with the trumpet if I ever decide to do that. Also, it helps in the case of the trombones and tuba chorale that I have starting at bar 5. It prevents there from being difficult notes for tenor trombone(which just shows up as trombone in Musescore)*



> Bar 11 you write the eighth note tremolo from the original score and write super fast double-tounge in the contrabassoon. This is super unidiomatic as well as tiring and on the border of unplayability for a longer period of time.


*I honestly didn't think about that when having the contrabassoon double the double basses. Perhaps I should have the bassoon play this an octave above the double basses. Or maybe keep the contrabassoon part and just have it pulse on the beat instead of on the half beat, so having a quarter note pulse in the contrabassoon against an eighth note tremolo in the double basses. And the eighth note tremolo is way easier for the orchestra to time right than my initial idea of alternating the octaves between the instruments because there aren't eighth rests all over the place.*


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

Orchestration is a life-long art. Beginners should read and re-read orchestration books before anything else. Then study scores. Then ask questions from players. Then try orchestrating.

On another note, getting advice from strangers on the Internet means that some will know what they are talking about, while others who seem to, actually don't know squat. Be careful as you may not figure out whose advice you can trust. Now having said that, I think the first guy who responded does know what he's talking about.

Finally, while it's a nice fantasy to think an orchestra would read/play yours or anybody else's orchestration of a Beethoven piano sonata, the chances of having that happening are slim at best. Why? Because most conductors would rather program pure orchestral pieces rather than transcriptions. Their attitude is almost always: "_Beethoven wrote plenty of orchestral works for me to choose from. Let the pianists play his piano music."_


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## caters (Aug 2, 2018)

Yeah, I know that orchestration, like composition, is a lifelong art and I have been studying orchestration for years both from books and from online pdfs as well as from a few YouTube channels that I know have great tips on orchestration. One that comes to mind is Orchestration Online by Thomas Goss.

I have been and am continuing to study orchestration from multiple sources. I also analyzed the original piano score of the Pathetique Sonata, both visually and via audio to figure out moments when I need a crescendo of mass(in other words a build-up of the orchestral texture) and other moments when I only need a crescendo of dynamic as well as when the brass should come in and when solos are most appropriate before I started actually writing down my orchestration note by note, staff by staff, generally thinking in groups such as bass and treble as well as the sections of the orchestra.

I have been using the Tympani mainly for an accent where I feel one in the piano score(which in the case of the first 4 bars of the Grave, are the 1st and 4th beats of the 4/4 time signature).

And I do take online feedback with a grain of salt unless it is something very obvious(such as a harmonic mistake or interpreting the octaves wrongly, both of which have happened with this orchestration and have since been fixed). Otherwise, if the wrongness of my composition or orchestration isn't obvious, I typically wait until I get more than 1 response about it(perhaps even from the same person) before I make any changes in the score. But that doesn't mean that I won't reply to such comments even when there is only 1 comment about orchestration mistakes.

This is also why I typically ask for feedback on multiple message boards, on top of the fact that the more message boards I post about my orchestration on, the quicker the average response time is.


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## Vasks (Dec 9, 2013)

caters said:


> I have been using the Tympani mainly for an accent


Yeah I saw that. Which means that you still have much to learn about the timpani specifically and orchestration in general. And you really need to kill the idea of the 1st trombone being in the alto clef. That disappeared shortly after Beethoven died. Study more 20th century scores and you'll almost never see the alto clef used for lead trombone. Talk to players and you'll discover that most do not even own an alto trombone (for which the alto clef is used).


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