(hence the specific name). Later, "symphonic" began to be called in general any music for a given instrumental composition - including that created by composers of world national schools.

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  The symphony orchestra consists of instruments whose history is inextricably linked with the history of the music of Western Europe. Music that is written for a symphony orchestra (also called "symphonic") usually takes into account the style (genre specificity, musical language, up to the limitations imposed by the design features of this instrument) that has developed within the framework of European musical culture.

  The basis of the symphony orchestra is made up of four groups of instruments: strings bowed, wood and brass winds, percussion. In some cases, other instruments are also included in the orchestra (first of all, the harp, as well as the piano, organ, celesta, harpsichord).

  The full size orchestra required to perform some of the great works of the 19th and 20th centuries can include up to 110 musicians. Small orchestras can consist of no more than fifty performers: such groups either work in small towns where the existence of a full-scale orchestra is not economically feasible, or they specialize in the performance of earlier music designed for small ensembles and works intended by composers for more chamber music. , and can be called chamber orchestras. Sometimes the number of wind instruments presented in it is used to indicate the size of the orchestra: the composition of the orchestra, in which two flutists, two oboists play (there are also two pipes, and the horn can be one or two pairs), etc., is called a pair, the composition with three flutists, etc. - triple. In a triple composition, its variety is added to a pair of basic woodwind instruments: for flutes - a piccolo flute, for oboes - an English horn, for clarinets - bass clarinet, for bassoons - contrabassoon. At the same time, a performer on these types of instruments can combine them with the main type, that is, a flutist-piccolo player can also play on the third flute, a performer on the English horn - on the third oboe, etc. With a further increase in the composition (quadruple, five) in groups of woodwind instruments can be added alto flute, small clarinet (piccolo) in Es, oboe d'amour, and in groups of brass wind instruments - Wagner (horn) tubas, bass trumpet or piccolo trumpet, different types of bass tubas, chimbasso.

  The origins of the symphony orchestra can be traced back to the European instrumental music-making of the 16th century, linking its history with the improvement of stringed instruments. In the Baroque era, the orchestra could not be imagined without a harpsichord, often included a lute, mandolins. The "classical" composition of the symphony orchestra was formed in the scores of L. van Beethoven and is called "Beethovenian" in musicological literature. This orchestra, in addition to stringed bowed instruments, which occupied a leading position in it - violins, violas, cellos and double basses (the so-called bow quintet, since violins are divided into first and second ones), - included paired compositions of woodwind instruments (2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets and 2 bassoons) and a group of brass winds (2, 3 or 4 horns and 2 trumpets); percussion were represented by timpani.

  In the second half of the 19th century, the "Beethoven" orchestra was already classified as a small symphony; the large composition of the orchestra, which was also initiated by Beethoven, in his Ninth Symphony (1824), differed from the small one not only in the expanded composition of each section, but also in some additional instruments: a small flute, contrabassoon, trombones, triangle, cymbals and bass drum appeared in it . Later, in the era of romanticism, harps, tubas, cor anglais, bells appeared in the symphony orchestra. Already in the 40s of the 19th century, the orchestra of the Berlin Opera, if necessary, could provide a composition of 14 first and 14 second violins, 8 violas, 10 cellos, 8 double basses, 4 of each of the wood and brass wind instruments, timpani, bass drum, cymbals and 2 harps. Berlioz, in a treatise on instrumentation, described an even larger orchestra, which was necessary for the performance of his own scores. An even greater number of instruments include the Wagner Orchestra.

  Along the ramp are the 1st violins (left) and cellos (right). The 2nd violins sit behind the first, the violas sit behind the cellos on the right. The double basses are behind the cellos. In the middle of the stage are two rows of woodwind instruments (flutes, oboes and clarinets, bassoons). Behind them are brass instruments - trumpets, horns, trombones and tuba. Percussion instruments are located farthest from the listener - from the left edge to the center of the stage, where timpani are usually located. The harps are on the left side of the conductor.

  german seating differs in that the cellos change places with 2 violins, and the double basses - on the left. Brass instruments move to the right, into the depths of the stage, and the horns move to the left. Drums with this layout are located closer to the right wings.

  The conductor decides how to seat the orchestra.

  Music lesson. 7th grade
  Topic: "Orchestra. Symphony Orchestra Instruments»

  Nowadays, with the help of a computer, one musician can extract the sounds produced by an entire orchestra, but nothing is more mesmerizing than an orchestra of hundreds of musicians playing live music in unison.

  The ancient Greeks used the word "orchestra" to refer to the area in front of the stage where musicians and dancers performed. Now an orchestra is a name for a large group of musicians who play music on strings, as well as on brass and woodwind instruments, supported by a percussion group. As a rule, not one musician plays the same theme, but several. For example, a modern orchestra can have from 70 to 100 participants and, therefore, during a concert it is able both to perform the most complex of musical forms - a symphony - and to accompany a soloist. Read more...

  An orchestra is a large group of musical instruments that perform works specially designed for a given composition.
  Depending on the composition, orchestras have different, expressive, timbre and dynamic capabilities and have different names:
  symphony orchestra (large and small),
  chamber, orchestra of folk instruments,
  wind,
  pop,
  jazz.

  Brass instruments1-flugelhorn
  2-pipe
  3-mutes

  4-horn
  5-cornet
  6-cornet alto

  7-horn
  8-trombone
  9-bass trombone

  10 alt
  11 tenor
  12-baritone

  13 tuba
  15-tube helicon
  16-helicon bass

  For the manufacture of copper-wind instruments, copper metals (copper, brass, etc.) are used.
  Powerfully and solemnly, brilliantly and brightly, the whole group of brass-wind instruments sounds in the orchestra.
  Brass instruments differ from all other musical instruments in their pronounced directionality. Brass wind instruments are also distinguished by a rather large sound volume and a complete absence of noise. More ... Brass wind instruments

  When prehistoric man reached such a stage of development that he realized the possibility of extracting sound from reeds, horns or shells, then only he began to think about further improvement of these simple musical instruments. It is, of course, difficult to say how many millennia it took to “master” such instruments, but it remains undoubted that the musicians of that time did not make any difference between these sounding bodies and called them by one single name. When the consciousness of primitive man learned to feel the difference in the sound of reeds, horns and shells, only then, probably, did the division of the first instruments into “large” and “small” began.
  The trumpet has a sonorous “voice”. The loud sound of the trumpet is heard even when the whole orchestra is playing. Often the trumpet has a solo part.
  Read more ... A striking representative of the union of brass instruments is the trumpet

  brass instruments

  Alto, as well as tenor and baritone, belongs to the instruments of the middle layers. The appearance of these instruments and the scale were subjected to various changes: some of them had an elongated tube shape, like a trumpet or trombone, others were rounded, similar to a French horn, and others had an oval shape or close to it, tubular. In our practice, as is known, the oval shape has become established, which helps to soften the excessive sharpness of the sound (typical, for example, of tubas) or, conversely, the muffled sound (inherent in horns). Read more... Brass Instruments

  Brass Instruments Unlike other representatives of the brass group of wind instruments, the tuba is a rather young instrument. It was built in the second quarter of the 19th century in Germany. The first tubas were imperfect and were initially used only in military and garden orchestras. Only when it got to France, in the hands of the instrumental master Adolphe Sax, did the tuba begin to meet the high requirements of the symphony orchestra.
  The tuba is a bass instrument capable of reaching the lowest end of the range in the brass group. Read more...

  Slide #10

  Tenor. This instrument, which occupies a central position among the representatives of the middle tuning of the main group, stands out for its evenness of tone - full, soft - over most of the range. The best, most expressive and technically flexible is the middle register, often supplemented by nearby sounds of a high register. Baritone. This tool is rightly considered the most perfect type of wide-bore tools. The ability of the baritone to expressive melodiousness put him forward in the category of the leading voice of the baritone, tenor and alto tessitura. Read more...

  brass instruments

  Slide #11

  Kurai is a Tatar folk instrument. An open, longitudinal flute from the stem of an umbrella plant is a tube with a cylindrical or conical channel, made of wood or metal.

  Slide #12

  The task of percussion instruments is to enhance the sonority of the orchestra, make it more colorful, show the expressiveness and variety of rhythm. Percussion instruments

  Slide #13

  Percussion InstrumentsThe big drum is a huge metal cylinder covered with leather on both or one side. The one-sided big drum is used mainly in the symphony orchestra, where it is strengthened on a special machine.

  The big drum is widely used in both symphony and brass bands. His role is especially great in marching marches, where he regularly emphasizes (usually in combination with cymbals) both beats of the bar. Read more...

  Slide #14

  Small drum. Its design is very simple. This is a flat cylinder covered on both sides with leather (or plastic). It has several strings stretched over the skin on the underside, which give the timbre of the snare drum a characteristic rattling shade (crackle). They beat the snare drum with two wooden sticks with small thickenings at the ends. Read more…Percussion instruments

  Slide #15

  Dishes. They consist of two metal discs, which the performer holds in his hands with the help of special straps.
  The cymbals have a very bright timbre. The main technique of playing the cymbals is a blow (more often sliding than oncoming) of one cymbal against another. There are other methods of playing - with a stick or mallet. Read more...

  Percussion instruments

  Slide #16

  String instruments1-viola
  2-viola de gamba
  3-violin
  4-bow
  5-alto
  6 viloncello
  7-double bass
  8-mandalina
  9 lute
  10-guitar
  11-electric guitar
  12-banjo
  13-balalaika
  14-gusli
  15-pimbals

  Slide #17

  Violin (It. violino, French violon, English violin, German Violine, Geige)
  The violin is rightly called a descendant of other, earlier bowed stringed instruments.
  Everything that has been said about the technique of strings applies specifically to the violin: it is the most mobile and flexible instrument among the bowed ones.
  Her technical abilities grew along with the art of such virtuosos as Vitali, Torelli and Corelli in the 17th century, and later - Tartini, Viotti, Spohr, Vietan, Berio, Wieniawski, Sarasate, Isai and, of course, N. Paganini. The solo gives an irresistible effect. violin playing the main theme - Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade" can be cited as an example.
  For all its qualities, the violin, along with the piano, has long played a leading role among solo concert instruments. Read more...

  Stringed instruments

  Slide #18

  Cello (it. violoncello)
  The cello entered musical life in the second half of the 16th century. It owes its creation to the art of such outstanding instrumental masters as Magini, Gasparo de Salo, and later - Amati and Stradivari. Like the viola, the cello has long been considered a secondary instrument in the orchestra. Until the end of the 18th century, composers used it mainly as a bass voice, and at the very beginning of the century before last, in connection with this, the cello and double bass parts were written in the score on one line.
  Beethoven was the first to "discover" the beauty of the cello timbre. Following him, the composers turned its sound into the singing voice of the orchestra - let's recall the second part of Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony. Read more...

  Stringed instruments

  Slide #19

  Alto (It. alto, German Alt)
  The appearance of the viola and the way it is played are very similar to the violin, so if you do not notice the difference in size (and it is very difficult to do this: the viola is noticeably larger than the violin), then they can easily be confused.
  It is believed that the timbre of the viola is inferior to the violin in brilliance and brightness. Nevertheless, this instrument also has its unique advantages: it is indispensable in music of an elegiac, dreamy-romantic nature. In terms of virtuosity, the viola is almost as perfect as the violin, but the large size of the viola requires the player to have appropriate stretching of the fingers and physical strength. Read more...String Instruments

  Slide #20

  The double bass is much superior to its counterparts both in size and in the volume of the low register: the double bass is twice the size of the cello, which is twice the size of the viola.
  Most likely, the double bass, a descendant of the old viol, appeared in the orchestra in the 17th century. The shape of the double bass has retained the features of the old viol to this day: the body pointed upwards, the sloping sides - thanks to this, the performer can bend over the upper part of the body and “reach out” to the bottom of the neck to extract the highest sounds. The instrument is so large that the performer plays it while standing or sitting on a high stool.
  Read more...String Instruments

  Slide #21

  String InstrumentsDomra is a Russian musical stringed plucked instrument. Not much is known about its origin. Information about domra in Russia has been preserved only in ancient palace records and in popular prints. People who played the domra were called domrachi. Some historians believe that the ancestor of the domra is the oldest TANBUR instrument.

  The history of the origin of the balalaika is rooted in the depths of centuries. Many believe that the balalaika was invented in Rus', others think that it came from the folk instrument of the Kirghiz-Kaisaks - dombra. There is another version: perhaps the balalaika was invented during the Tatar rule, or at least borrowed from the Tatars.

  Slide #22

  The guitar is a stringed musical instrument.
  The main structural details of the guitar:
  frame,
  neck with frets and head
  a body with flat soundboards and a characteristic bridge, which is made of wood or substitutes, has frets (usually up to 24).
  There are many varieties of guitars:
  acoustic
  6-strings (classical (Spanish), acoustic)
  7-strings (Russian guitar, romance, gypsy)
  9-string - differs in doubled three lower strings.
  12-string - differs in double strings. The paired strings are tuned an octave apart.
  Hawaiian
  Bass - 4-string Read more ...String instruments

  Slide #23

  Harp (It.arpa, French harpe, German Harfe, English harp)
  The harp is one of the oldest musical instruments of mankind. It originated from a bow with a stretched string, which sounded melodious when fired. Later, the sound of the bowstring was used as a signal. The man who first pulled three or four bowstrings on a bow, which, due to their unequal length, made sounds of different heights, became the creator of the first harp. Even in the Egyptian frescoes of the 15th century BC, harps still resemble a bow. And these harps are not the most ancient: archaeologists found the oldest during excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur in Mesopotamia - it was made four and a half thousand years ago, in the 26th century BC.
  In ancient times, in the East, in Greece and Rome, the harp remained one of the most common and beloved instruments. Read more...String Instruments

  Slide #24

  Woodwind instruments1-small flute
  2-flute
  3rd oboe
  4-horn
  5-Small clarinet

  6-clarinet
  7-clarinet bass
  8 bassoon
  10-contrabassoon
  11-saxophone soprano

  12-saxophone alto
  13-saxophone tenor
  14-sax baritone
  17-cane

  Slide #25

  Woodwind Instruments Oboe (German: Oboe)
  In antiquity of its origin, the oboe competes with the flute: it traces its lineage to the primitive flute. Of the ancestors of the oboe, the Greek aulos was most widely used, without which the ancient Hellenes could not imagine either a feast or a theatrical performance. The ancestors of the oboe came to Europe from the Middle East.
  In the 17th century, an oboe was created from a bombarda - a pipe-type instrument, which immediately became popular in the orchestra. It soon became a concert instrument as well. For almost a century, the oboe has been the idol of musicians and music lovers. The best composers of the 17th and 18th centuries - Lully, Rameau, Bach, Handel - paid tribute to this hobby: Handel, for example, wrote concertos for the oboe, the difficulty of which can confuse even modern oboists. However, at the beginning of the 19th century, the “cult” of the oboe in the orchestra faded somewhat, and the leading role in the woodwind group passed to the clarinet. Read more...

  Slide #26

  If the oboe, flute and bassoon have been in the orchestra for more than four centuries, then the clarinet firmly entered it only in the 18th century. The ancestor of the clarinet was a medieval folk instrument - the flute "chalumo". It is believed that in 1690 the German master Denner managed to improve it. The upper register of the instrument struck contemporaries with its sharp and piercing timbre - it immediately reminded them of the sound of a pipe, which was called at that time "clarino". The new instrument was called clarinetto, which means "small trumpet". Of all the woodwinds, only the clarinet can change the volume of the sound in a flexible way. This and many other qualities of the clarinet have made it one of the most expressive voices in the orchestra. It is curious that two Russian composers, dealing with the same plot, acted in exactly the same way: in both "The Snow Maiden" - Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky - Lel's shepherd tunes are entrusted to the clarinet.

  woodwind instruments

  Slide #27

  Flute (It. flauto, French flute, German Flote, English flute)
  The flute is one of the oldest instruments in the world, known since ancient times - in Egypt, Greece and Rome. Since ancient times, people have learned to extract musical sounds from a cut reed, closed at one end. This primitive musical instrument was apparently the distant ancestor of the flute. In Europe in the Middle Ages, two types of flute became widespread: straight and transverse. The straight flute, or "tipped flute", was held straight ahead, like an oboe or clarinet; oblique, or transverse - at an angle. The transverse flute turned out to be more viable, as it was easy to improve. In the middle of the 18th century, it finally replaced the straight flute from the symphony orchestra. At the same time, the flute, along with the harp and harpsichord, became one of the most beloved home music instruments. The flute, for example, was played by the Russian artist Fedotov and the Prussian king Frederick II. Woodwind instruments

  Slide #28

  A characteristic feature of a number of instruments is the presence of white and black keys, which are collectively called a keyboard or, for an organ, a manual.
  The main keyboard instruments: organ (relatives - portable, positive), clavichord (related - spinet in Italy and virginal in England), harpsichord, piano (varieties - piano and piano).
  According to the sound source, keyboard instruments are divided into two groups. The first group includes instruments with strings, the second group includes organ-type instruments. Instead of strings, they have pipes of various shapes. Keyboard instruments

  Slide #29

  Organ (It. organo, French orgue, German Orgel, English organ)
  Keyboard wind instrument - organ - was known in ancient times. In ancient organs, air was pumped with bellows by hand. In medieval Europe, the organ became an instrument of church worship. It was in the spiritual environment of the 17th century that organ polyphonic art was born, the best representatives of which were Frescobaldi, Bach and Handel.
  The organ is a gigantic instrument with many different timbres.
  “This is a whole orchestra, which in skillful hands can convey everything, express everything,” Balzac wrote about him. Read more...

  Slide #30

  Keyboard instruments Bayan belongs to the group of keyboard-wind musical instruments. This folk musical instrument arose as a result of the improvement of the chromatic harmonica, which was designed by N. Beloborodov in Russia in 1870. The Russian harmonist Y. Orlansky-Titarenko gave the improved chromatic harmonica the name "button accordion".

  Tula accordion

  Bayan Etude

  Slide #31

  The accordion (from the French accordeon) is one of the most popular instruments not only in Russia, but also abroad. The accordion has gained particular popularity among folk music performers in Russia, Italy, Germany, France, Bulgaria, Latvia, the USA and many other countries. air blown by bellows. With the left hand, the performer controls the bellows, and also presses the bass and chord buttons to accompany the melody, which is played with the right hand.

  Keyboard instruments

  Slide #32

  Keyboard Instruments The source of sound in the piano is metal strings, which begin to sound from the impact of felt-covered wooden hammers, and the hammers are driven by finger pressure on the keys.
  The first keyboard instruments, already known at the beginning of the 15th century, were the harpsichord and clavichord (in Italian - clavicembalo). On the clavichord, the strings were vibrated by metal levers - tangents, on the harpsichord - by crow feathers, and later - by metal hooks. The sound of these instruments was dynamically monotonous and faded quickly. More..

  A modern symphony orchestra consists of 4 main groups. The foundation of the orchestra is a string group (violins, violas, cellos, double basses). In most cases, strings are the main carriers of the melodic beginning in the orchestra. The number of musicians playing strings is approximately 2/3 of the entire band. The group of woodwind instruments includes flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons. Each of them usually has an independent party. Yielding to bowed ones in timbre saturation, dynamic properties and a variety of playing techniques, wind instruments have great power, compact sound, bright colorful hues. The third group of orchestra instruments is brass (horn, trumpet, trombone, tuba). They bring new bright colors to the orchestra, enriching its dynamic capabilities, giving power and brilliance to the sound, and also serve as a bass and rhythmic support.
  Percussion instruments are becoming increasingly important in the symphony orchestra. Their main function is rhythmic. In addition, they create a special sound and noise background, complement and decorate the orchestral palette with color effects. According to the nature of the sound, drums are divided into 2 types: some have a certain pitch (timpani, bells, xylophone, bells, etc.), others lack an exact pitch (triangle, tambourine, small and large drum, cymbals). Of the instruments that are not included in the main groups, the role of the harp is the most significant. Occasionally, composers include the celesta, piano, saxophone, organ and other instruments in the orchestra.

  Woodwinds

  FLUTE

  One of the oldest instruments in the world, known in antiquity - in Egypt, Greece and Rome. Since ancient times, people have learned to extract musical sounds from a cut reed, closed at one end. This primitive musical instrument was apparently the distant ancestor of the flute.

  In Europe in the Middle Ages, two types of flute became widespread: straight and transverse. The straight flute, or "tipped flute", was held straight ahead, like an oboe or clarinet; oblique, or transverse - at an angle. The transverse flute turned out to be more viable, as it was easy to improve. In the middle of the 18th century, it finally replaced the straight flute from the symphony orchestra. At the same time, the flute, along with the harp and harpsichord, became one of the most beloved home music instruments. The flute, for example, was played by the Russian artist Fedotov and the Prussian king Frederick II.

  The flute is the most mobile woodwind instrument: in terms of virtuosity, it surpasses all other wind instruments. An example of this is the ballet suite "Daphnis and Chloe" by Ravel, where the flute actually acts as a solo instrument.

  The flute is a cylindrical tube, wooden or metal, closed on one side - at the head. There is also a side hole for air injection. Playing the flute requires a lot of air consumption: when blown in, part of it breaks on the sharp edge of the hole and leaves. From this, a characteristic sibilant overtone is obtained, especially in a low register. For the same reason, sustained notes and wide melodies are difficult to play on the flute.

  Rimsky-Korsakov described the sonority of the flute as follows: "The timbre is cold, most suitable for melodies of a graceful and frivolous nature in major, and with a touch of superficial sadness in minor."

  Composers often use an ensemble of three flutes. An example is the dance of the shepherdesses from Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker.

  OBOE

  competes with the flute in the antiquity of its origin: it traces its genealogy to the primitive flute. Of the ancestors of the oboe, the Greek aulos was most widely used, without which the ancient Hellenes could not imagine either a feast or a theatrical performance. The ancestors of the oboe came to Europe from the Middle East.

  In the 17th century, an oboe was created from a bombarda - a pipe-type instrument, which immediately became popular in the orchestra. It soon became a concert instrument as well. For almost a century, the oboe has been the idol of musicians and music lovers. The best composers of the 17th-18th centuries - Lully, Rameau, Bach, Handel - paid tribute to this passion: Handel, for example, wrote concertos for the oboe, the difficulty of which can confuse even modern oboists. However, at the beginning of the 19th century, the "cult" of the oboe in the orchestra faded somewhat, and the leading role in the woodwind group passed to the clarinet.

  According to its structure, the oboe is a conical tube; at one end of it is a small funnel-shaped bell, at the other - a cane, which the performer holds in his mouth.

  Thanks to some design features, the oboe never loses its tuning. Therefore, it has become a tradition to tune the entire orchestra to it. In front of a symphony orchestra, when the musicians are gathering on the stage, it is not uncommon to hear the oboist playing in A in the first octave, and the other performers fine-tuning their instruments.

  The oboe has a mobile technique, although it is inferior in this respect to the flute. It is more of a singing than a virtuoso instrument: as a rule, its domain is sadness and elegiac. This is how it sounds in the theme of swans from the intermission to the second act of "Swan Lake" and in the simple melancholic melody of the second part of Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony. Occasionally, the oboe is assigned "comic roles": in Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty, for example, in the variation of "The Cat and the Kitty", the oboe amusingly imitates the cat's meow.

  CLARINET

  It is a cylindrical wooden tube with a coronet-shaped bell at one end and a cane-tip at the other.

  Of all the woodwinds, only the clarinet has the flexibility to change the volume of the sound. This and many other qualities of the clarinet have made it one of the most expressive voices in the orchestra. It is curious that two Russian composers, dealing with the same plot, acted in exactly the same way: in both "The Snow Maiden" - Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky - Lel's shepherd tunes are entrusted to the clarinet.

  The timbre of the clarinet is often associated with gloomy dramatic situations. This area of ​​expressiveness was "discovered" by Weber. In the "Wolf Valley" scene from "Magic Shooter" he first guessed what tragic effects are hidden in the low register of the instrument. Later, Tchaikovsky used the eerie sound of low clarinets in The Queen of Spades at the moment when the Countess's ghost appears.

  Small clarinet.
  The small clarinet came to the symphony orchestra from the military brass. It was first used by Berlioz, who entrusted him with the distorted "beloved theme" in the last movement of the Fantastic Symphony. The small clarinet was often used by Wagner, Rimsky-Korsakov, R. Strauss. Shostakovich.

  Basset horn.
  At the end of the 18th century, the clarinet family was enriched with one more member: the basset horn appeared in the orchestra - an old variety of the alto clarinet. In size it surpassed the main instrument, and its timbre - calm, solemn and matte - occupied an intermediate position between the usual and bass clarinet. He stayed in the orchestra for only a few decades and owed his heyday to Mozart. It was for two basset horns with bassoons that the beginning of the "Requiem" was written (now the basset horns are being replaced by clarinets).

  An attempt to revive this instrument under the name of the alto clarinet was made by R. Strauss, but since then it seems to have had no repetitions. Nowadays, basset horns are included in military bands.

  Bass clarinet.
  The bass clarinet is the most "impressive" member of the family. Built at the end of the 18th century, it won a strong position in the symphony orchestra. The shape of this instrument is quite unusual: its bell is bent upwards, like a smoking pipe, and the mouthpiece is mounted on a curved rod - all this in order to reduce the exorbitant length of the instrument and facilitate its use. Meyerbeer was the first to "discover" the enormous dramatic power of this instrument. Wagner, starting with "Lohengrin", makes him a permanent bass woodwind.

  Russian composers often used the bass clarinet in their work. So, the gloomy sounds of the bass clarinet are heard in the fifth picture of the "Queen of Spades" at the time when Herman is reading Lisa's letter. Now the bass clarinet is a permanent member of a large symphony orchestra, and its functions are very diverse.

  BASSOON

  The ancestor of the bassoon is the old bass pipe - the bombarda. The bassoon that replaced it was built by canon Afragno degli Albonesi in the first half of the 16th century. A large wooden pipe bent in half resembled a bundle of firewood, which is reflected in the name of the instrument (the Italian word fagotto means "bundle"). The bassoon conquered his contemporaries with the euphony of the timbre, who, in contrast to the hoarse voice of the bombarda, began to call him "dolcino" - sweet.

  In the future, while retaining its external outlines, the bassoon underwent serious improvements. From the 17th century, he entered the symphony orchestra, and from the 18th century - into the military. The conical wooden trunk of the bassoon is very large, so it is "folded" in half. A curved metal tube is attached to the top of the instrument, on which a cane is put on. During the game, the bassoon is hung on a string around the performer's neck.

  In the 18th century, the instrument enjoyed great love among contemporaries: some called it "proud", others - "gentle, melancholic, religious". Rimsky-Korsakov defined the color of the bassoon in a very peculiar way: "The timbre is senilely mocking in major and painfully sad in minor." Bassoon performance requires a lot of breathing, and forte in a low register can cause extreme fatigue for the performer. The functions of the tool are very diverse. True, in the 18th century they were often limited to supporting stringed basses. But in the 19th century, with Beethoven and Weber, the bassoon became the individual voice of the orchestra, and each of the subsequent masters found new properties in it. Meyerbeer in "Robert the Devil" forced the bassoons to portray "death laughter, from which frost is tearing at the skin" (the words of Berlioz). Rimsky-Korsakov in "Scheherazade" (a story by Prince Kalender) discovered a poetic narrator in the bassoon. In this last role, the bassoon performs especially often - that is probably why Thomas Mann called the bassoon a "mockingbird". Examples can be found in the "Humorous Scherzo" for four bassoons and in Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf", where the bassoon is assigned the "role" of Grandfather, or at the beginning of the finale of Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony.

  Varieties of the bassoon are limited in our time to just one representative - the counterbassoon. It is the lowest range instrument of the orchestra. Lower than the limiting sounds of the contrabassoon, only the pedal basses of the organ sound.

  The idea to continue the bassoon scale down appeared a long time ago - the first counterbassoon was built in 1620. But it was so imperfect that, until the end of the 19th century, when the instrument was improved, very few people turned to it: occasionally Haydn, Beethoven, Glinka.

  The modern counterbassoon is an instrument bent three times: its unfolded length is 5 m 93 cm (!); in technique it resembles a bassoon, but is less agile and has a thick, almost organ-like timbre. Composers of the 19th century - Rimsky-Korsakov, Brahms - usually turned to the counterbassoon to enhance the bass. But sometimes interesting solos are written for him. Ravel, for example, in "The Conversation of the Beauty and the Beast" (the ballet "My Mother the Goose") entrusted him with the voice of the monster.

  Strings

  VIOLIN

  A stringed bowed instrument, the highest in sound, the richest in expressive and technical capabilities among the instruments of the violin family. It is believed that the immediate predecessor of the violin was the so-called lira de braccio, which originates from ancient viols; like a violin, this instrument was held at the shoulder (Italian braccio - shoulder), the playing techniques were also similar to violin ones.

  From the middle of the XVI century. the violin is established in musical practice as a solo and ensemble instrument. Many generations of craftsmen worked to improve the design, improve the sound qualities of the violin. History has preserved the names of A. and N. Amati, A. and D. Guarneri, A. Stradivari - outstanding Italian masters of the late 16th - early 18th centuries, who created samples of violins that are still considered unsurpassed.

  The body of the violin has a characteristic oval shape with notches on the sides. The shell connects two soundboards of the instrument (special holes are cut on the top - efs). There are 4 strings stretched over the fretboard, tuned in fifths.

  The range of the violin covers 4 octaves; however, with the help of harmonics, a number of higher sounds can also be extracted.

  The violin is a predominantly monophonic instrument. However, harmonic intervals and even 4-sound chords are extracted on it.

  The timbre of the violin is melodious, rich in sound and dynamic nuances, in expressiveness it approaches the human voice. To change the timbre during the game, sometimes a mute is used. The violin, which has exceptional technical mobility, is often entrusted with the performance of difficult and fast passages, wide and melodic jumps, various kinds of trills, tremolo.

  ALTO

  and the way it is played are very reminiscent of the violin, so if you do not notice the difference in size (and it is very difficult to do this: the viola is noticeably larger than the violin), then they can easily be confused. It is believed that the timbre of the viola is inferior to the violin in brilliance and brightness. Nevertheless, this instrument also has its unique advantages: it is indispensable in music of an elegiac, dreamy-romantic nature. In terms of virtuosity, the viola is almost as perfect as the violin, but the large size of the viola requires the player to have appropriate stretching of the fingers and physical strength.

  The viola did not immediately receive its proper role among the instruments of the orchestra. After the flourishing of the polyphonic school of Bach and Handel, when the viola was an equal member of the string group, they began to entrust him with a subordinate harmonic voice. Violists in those days were usually unsuccessful violinists. In the works of Gluck, Haydn and, to some extent, Mozart, the viola is used only as the middle or lower voice of the orchestra. Only in the works of Beethoven and Romantic composers does the viola acquire the significance of a melodic instrument.

  The viola owes much of its recognition to the outstanding violinists of the last century, especially Paganini, who played the viola in a quartet and performed in a solo concert. Later, Berlioz introduces the part of the solo viola into his symphony "Harold in Italy", entrusting him with the characterization of Harold. After that, the attitude of composers and performers to the viola began to change. Wagner in "Tannhäuser", in a scene called "The Grotto of Venus", writes for the viola an incredibly difficult part for that time. R. Strauss interprets the solo viola even more masterfully in the symphonic film "Don Quixote". Violas are often entrusted with a melodic voice together with cellos, violins, or completely independently, as, for example, in the second act of Rimsky-Korsakov's "The Golden Cockerel" during the dance of the Queen of Shemakhan.

  CELLO

  entered the musical life in the second half of the XVI century. It owes its creation to the art of such outstanding instrumental masters as Magini, Gasparo de Salo, and later - Amati and Stradivari. Like the viola, the cello has long been considered a secondary instrument in the orchestra. Until the end of the 18th century, composers used it mainly as a bass voice, and at the very beginning of the century before last, in connection with this, the cello and double bass parts were written in the score on one line.

  The cello is twice the size of the viola, its bow is shorter than the violin and viola, the strings are much longer. The cello belongs to the number of "foot" instruments: the performer puts it between his knees, resting the metal spike on the floor.

  Beethoven was the first to "discover" the beauty of the cello timbre. Following him, the composers turned its sound into the singing voice of the orchestra - let's recall the second part of Tchaikovsky's VIth Symphony.

  Quite often, in operas, ballets and symphonic works, the cello is assigned solo - as, for example, in R. Strauss's Don Quixote. In the number of concert pieces written for her, the cello is second only to the violin.

  Like the violin and viola, the cello has four strings tuned in fifths, but an octave below the violas. In terms of technical capabilities, the cello is not inferior to the violin, and in some cases even surpasses it. For example, due to the longer strings of the cello, it is possible to obtain a richer series of harmonics on it.

  DOUBLE BASS

  far surpasses its counterparts both in size and in the volume of the low register: the double bass is twice the size of the cello, which is twice the size of the viola.

  Most likely, the double bass, a descendant of the old viol, appeared in the orchestra in the 17th century. The shape of the double bass has retained the features of the old viol to this day: the body pointed upwards, the sloping sides - thanks to this, the performer can bend over the upper part of the body and "reach out" to the bottom of the neck in order to extract the highest sounds. The instrument is so large that the performer plays it while standing or sitting on a high stool.

  In terms of virtuosity, the modern double bass is quite mobile: often, together with the cellos, rather fast passages are performed on it. But "thanks" to its size, it requires a huge stretching of the fingers, and its bow is very heavy. All this makes the technique of the instrument heavier: passages in which lightness is required sound somewhat heavy on it. Nevertheless, his role in the orchestra is enormous: by invariably performing the bass voice parts, he creates the foundation for the sound of the string group, and together with the bassoon and tuba or the third trombone, the entire orchestra. In addition, double basses sound great in an octave with cellos in melodies.

  In the orchestra, it is very rare to divide double basses into several parts or perform solos on them.

  Brass

  PIPE

  entered the opera orchestra from its inception; Monteverdi's Orpheus had already sounded five trumpets.

  In the 17th and the first half of the 18th century, very virtuosic and high-pitched parts were written for trumpets, the prototype of which were the soprano parts in the vocal and instrumental compositions of that time. To perform these most difficult parts, musicians of the time of Purcell, Bach and Handel used natural instruments common in that era with a long pipe and a mouthpiece of a special device that made it possible to easily extract the highest overtones. A trumpet with such a mouthpiece was called "clarino", the same name was given in the history of music and writing style for it.

  In the second half of the 18th century, with a change in orchestral writing, the clarino style was forgotten, and the trumpet became predominantly a fanfare instrument. It was limited in its possibilities like a French horn, and was in an even worse position, since the "closed sounds" expanding the scale were not used on it because of their bad timbre. But in the thirties of the XIX century, with the invention of the valve mechanism, a new era began in the history of the pipe. It became a chromatic instrument and, after several decades, replaced the natural trumpet from the orchestra.

  The timbre of the trumpet is not characterized by lyrics, but the heroism he succeeds in the best possible way. Among the Viennese classics, trumpets were a purely fanfare instrument. They often performed the same functions in the music of the 19th century, announcing the beginning of processions, marches, solemn festivities and hunts. Wagner used pipes more than others and in a new way. Their timbre is almost always associated in his operas with chivalrous romance and heroism.

  The trumpet is famous not only for its sound power, but also for its outstanding virtuoso qualities.

  TROMBONE

  got its name from the Italian name for the pipe - tromba - with the magnifying suffix "one": trombone literally means "trumpet". And indeed: the trombone tube is twice as long as that of the trumpet. Already in the 16th century, the trombone received its modern form and since its inception has been a chromatic instrument. The full chromatic scale is achieved on it not through the mechanism of valves, but with the help of the so-called backstage. The backstage is a long additional tube, shaped like the Latin letter U. It is inserted into the main tube and lengthened as desired. In this case, the system of the instrument decreases accordingly. The performer pushes the wings down with his right hand, and supports the instrument with his left.

  Trombones have long been a "family" consisting of instruments of various sizes. Not so long ago, the trombone family consisted of three instruments; each of them corresponded to one of the three voices of the choir and received its name: trombone-alto, trombone-tenor, trombone-bass.

  Playing the trombone requires a huge amount of air, since the movement of the wings takes more time than pressing the valves on a horn or trumpet. Technically, the trombone is less mobile than its neighbors in the group: the scale on it is not so fast and clear, the forte is a bit heavy, the legato is difficult. Cantilena on a trombone requires a lot of tension from the performer. However, this instrument has qualities that make it indispensable in the orchestra: the sound of the trombone is more powerful and masculine. Monteverdi in the opera "Orpheus" perhaps for the first time felt the tragic character inherent in the sound of a trombone ensemble. And starting with Gluck, three trombones became obligatory in an opera orchestra; they often appear at the climax of a drama.

  The trombone trio is good at oratorical phrases. Since the second half of the 19th century, the trombone group has been supplemented by a bass instrument - the tuba. Together, three trombones and a tuba form a "heavy brass" quartet.

  A very peculiar effect is possible on the trombone - glissando. It is achieved by sliding the backstage at one position of the performer's lips. This technique was known even to Haydn, who in the oratorio "The Four Seasons" used it to imitate the barking of dogs. Glissando is widely used in modern music. The deliberately howling and rude glissando of the trombone in the Saber Dance from Khachaturian's ballet Gayane is curious. The effect of a trombone with a mute is also interesting, which gives the instrument an ominous, bizarre sound.

  FRENCH HORN

  The progenitor of the modern horn was the horn. From ancient times, the signal of the horn announced the beginning of the battle, in the Middle Ages and later, until the beginning of the 18th century, it was heard at hunting, competitions and solemn court ceremonies. In the 17th century, the hunting horn was occasionally introduced into the opera, but only in the next century did it become a permanent member of the orchestra. And the very name of the instrument - horn - recalls its past role: this word comes from the German "Waldhorn" - "forest horn". In Czech, this instrument is still called the forest horn.

  The metal tube of the old French horn was very long: when unfolded, some of them reached 5m 90cm. Such an instrument could not be held straight in the hands; therefore, the horn pipe was bent and given an elegant shell-like shape.

  The sound of the old horn was very beautiful, but the instrument turned out to be limited in its sound capabilities: it was possible to extract only the so-called natural scale, that is, those sounds that arise from dividing the column of air contained in the tube into 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. parts. According to legend, in 1753 the Dresden horn player Gampel accidentally put his hand into the bell and discovered that the horn's tuning had dropped. Since then, this technique has become widely used. Sounds obtained in this way were called "closed". But they were deaf and very different from the bright open ones. Not all composers often risked turning to them, usually satisfied with short, well-sounding fanfare motives built on open sounds.

  In 1830, the valve mechanism was invented - a permanent system of additional tubes that allows you to get a full, good-sounding chromatic scale on the horn. A few decades later, the improved French horn finally replaced the old natural one, which was last used by Rimsky-Korsakov in the opera May Night in 1878.

  The horn is considered the most poetic instrument in the brass group. In the low register the timbre of the horn is somewhat gloomy, in the upper register it is very tense. The horn can sing or slowly tell. The horn quartet sounds very soft - you can hear it in the "Waltz of the Flowers" from Tchaikovsky's "The Nutcracker" ballet.

  TUBA

  Pretty young instrument. It was built in the second quarter of the 19th century in Germany. The first tubas were imperfect and were initially used only in military and garden orchestras. Only when it got to France, in the hands of the instrumental master Adolphe Sax, did the tuba begin to meet the high requirements of the symphony orchestra.

  The tuba is a bass instrument capable of reaching the lowest end of the range in the brass group. In the past, its functions were performed by the serpent, a bizarrely shaped instrument that owes its name to it (in all Romance languages, the serpent means "snake") - then the bass and contrabass trombones and the ophicleide with its barbaric timbre. But the sound qualities of all these instruments were such that they did not give the brass band a good, stable bass. Until the tuba appeared, the masters stubbornly searched for a new instrument.

  The dimensions of the tuba are very large, its tube is twice as long as the tube of the trombone. During the game, the performer holds the instrument in front of him with the bell up.

  The tuba is a chromatic instrument. The air consumption on the tube is enormous; sometimes, especially in forte in a low register, the performer is forced to change his breath on each sound. Therefore, solos on this instrument are usually quite short. Technically, the tuba is movable, although heavy. In an orchestra, she usually serves as bass in a trio of trombones. But sometimes the tuba acts as a solo instrument - so to speak, in characteristic roles. Thus, while instrumenting Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" in the play "Cattle", Ravel entrusted the bass tuba with a humorous image of a rumbling cart dragging along the road. The tuba part is written here in a very high register.

  SAXOPHONE

  The creator of the SAXOPHONE is the outstanding Franco-Belgian instrumental maker Adolf Sachs. Sachs proceeded from a theoretical assumption: is it possible to build a musical instrument that would occupy an intermediate position between woodwinds and brass? Such an instrument, capable of linking the timbres of copper and wood, was in great need of the imperfect military brass bands of France. To implement his plan, A. Sachs used a new construction principle: he connected a conical tube with a clarinet reed and an oboe valve mechanism. The body of the instrument was made of metal, the external outlines resembled a bass clarinet; flared at the end, strongly bent upwards tube, to which is attached a cane on a metal tip, bent in the shape of "S". Sachs' idea was brilliantly successful: the new instrument really became the link between brass and woodwinds in military bands. Moreover, its timbre turned out to be so interesting that it attracted the attention of many musicians. The coloring of the saxophone sound is reminiscent of the English horn, clarinet and cello at the same time, but the sound power of the saxophone far exceeds the sound power of the clarinet.

  Having begun its existence in the military brass bands of France, the saxophone was soon introduced into the opera and symphony orchestra. For a very long time - several decades - only French composers turned to him: Thomas ("Hamlet"), Massenet ("Werther"), Bizet ("Arlesienne"), Ravel (instrumentation of Mussorgsky's Katrinok from an Exhibition). Then the composers of other countries also believed in him: Rachmaninov, for example, entrusted the saxophone with one of his best melodies in the first part of the Symphonic Dances.

  It is curious that on its unusual path the saxophone had to face obscurantism: in Germany during the years of fascism it was banned as an instrument of non-Aryan origin.

  In the 1910s, musicians of jazz ensembles drew attention to the saxophone, and soon the saxophone became the "king of jazz".

  Many composers of the 20th century appreciated this interesting instrument. Debussy wrote Rhapsody for saxophone and orchestra, Glazunov - Concerto for saxophone and orchestra, Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachaturian repeatedly referred to him in their works.

  Drums

  Timpani

  One of the oldest instruments in the world. Since ancient times, they have been widespread in many countries: in the East and Africa, in Greece, in Rome and among the Scythians. By playing the timpani, people accompanied important events in their lives: holidays and wars.

  In Europe, small, manual timpani have long existed. Medieval knights used them while on horseback. Large timpani entered Europe only in the 15th century - through Turkey and Hungary. In the 17th century, timpani entered the orchestra.

  Modern timpani outwardly resemble large copper cauldrons on a stand, covered with leather. The skin is pulled tight over the cauldron with several screws. They hit the skin with two sticks with soft round tips made of felt.

  Unlike other percussion instruments with leather, timpani produce a sound of a certain pitch. Each timpani is tuned to a certain tone, therefore, in order to get two sounds, a pair of timpani began to be used in the orchestra from the 17th century. Timpani can be rebuilt: for this, the performer must tighten or loosen the skin with screws: the greater the tension, the higher the tone. However, this operation is time consuming and risky during execution. Therefore, in the 19th century, craftsmen invented mechanical timpani, quickly tuned using levers or pedals.

  The role of the timpani in the orchestra is quite diverse. Their beats emphasize the rhythm of other instruments, forming either simple or intricate rhythmic figures. Rapidly alternating strikes of both sticks (tremolo) produce an effective build-up or thunder reproduction. Haydn also depicted thunderous peals with the help of timpani in The Four Seasons. Shostakovich in the Ninth Symphony makes the timpani imitate the cannonade. Sometimes timpani are assigned small melodic solos, as, for example, in the first movement of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony.

  DISHES

  were already known to the ancient world and the ancient East, but the Turks are famous for their special love and exceptional art of making them. In Europe, plates became popular in the 18th century, after the war with the Ottomans.

  Cymbals are large metal dishes made from copper alloys. The cymbals are slightly convex in the center - leather straps are attached here so that the performer can hold the instrument in his hands. The cymbals are played standing up so that nothing interferes with their vibration and so that the sound spreads freely in the air. The usual method of playing this instrument is an oblique, sliding strike of one cymbal against another - after that, a sonorous metallic splash is heard, which hangs in the air for a long time. If the performer wants to stop the vibration of the cymbals, he brings them to his chest, and the vibrations subside. Composers often accompany the strike of cymbals with the thunder of the bass drum; these instruments often sound together, as, for example, in the first bars of the finale of Tchaikovsky's Symphony IV. In addition to oblique impact, there are several other ways to play the cymbals: when, for example, a free-hanging cymbal is struck either with a timpani stick or wooden snare drum sticks.

  A symphony orchestra usually uses one pair of cymbals. In rare cases - as, for example, in Berlioz's Funeral and Triumphal Symphony, three pairs of plates are used.

  XYLOPHONE,

  apparently born at the moment when primitive man struck a dry wooden block with a stick and heard the sound of a certain tone. Many of these primitive wooden xylophones have been found in South America, Africa and Asia. In Europe, from the 15th century, this instrument fell into the hands of itinerant musicians and only at the beginning of the 19th century became a concert instrument. He owes his improvement to the self-taught musician from Mogilev, Mikhail Iosifovich Guzikov.

  The sounding body in the xylophone is wooden blocks of different sizes (xylon - in Greek "tree", phone - "sound"). They are arranged in four rows on matting bundles. The performer can roll them up and lay them out on a special table during the game; The xylophone is played with two wooden goat's feet. The sound of the xylophone is dry, snappy and sharp. It is very characteristic in color, so its appearance in a piece of music is usually associated with a special plot situation or a special mood. Rimsky-Korsakov in "The Tale of Tsar Saltan" entrusts the xylophone with the song "In the garden, in the garden" at the moment when the squirrel gnaws golden nuts. Lyadov draws the flight of Baba Yaga in a mortar with the sounds of a xylophone, trying to convey the crackling of breaking branches. Quite often the timbre of the xylophone evokes a gloomy mood, creates bizarre, grotesque images. The brief phrases of the xylophone in the "invasion episode" from Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony sound melancholy.

  The xylophone is a very virtuoso instrument. On it, great fluency is possible in fast passages, tremolo and a special effect - glissando: a swift movement of a stick along the bars.

  Small DRUM

  It is basically a military tool. It is a flat cylinder covered with leather on both sides. Strings are stretched under the skin from the underside; responding to the blows of the sticks, they give the sound of the drum a characteristic crackle. The drum beat sounds very interesting - tremolo with two sticks, which can be brought to the utmost speed. The strength of the sound in such a tremolo varies from a rustle to a thunderous crackle. The overture to Rossini's "The Thieving Magpie" begins with a shot of two snare drums, a dull shot of the snare drum is heard at the moment of the execution of Till Ulenspiegel in a symphonic poem by Richard Strauss.

  Sometimes the strings under the lower skin of the drum are lowered, and they stop responding to the beats of the sticks. This effect is equivalent to the introduction of a mute: the snare drum loses its sound power. So it sounds in the dance section "Prince and Princess" in "Scheherazade" by Rimsky-Korsakov.

  The snare drum first appeared in the small opera in the 19th century, and at first it was introduced only in military episodes. Meyerbeer was the first to take the snare drum out of the military episodes in the operas The Huguenots and The Prophet.

  In some cases, the snare drum becomes the "protagonist" not only in large symphonic episodes, but also in the whole work. An example is the "invasion episode" from Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony and Ravel's "Bolero", where one and then two snare drums hold the entire rhythmic pulse of the music.

  Big drum (it. gran casso).

  Nowadays there are two types of bass drum. One of them is a metal cylinder of large diameter - up to 72 cm - covered with leather on both sides. This type of bass drum is widely used in military bands, jazz bands, and American symphony bands. Another type of drum is a hoop with leather on one side. It appeared in France and quickly spread to the symphony orchestras of Europe. To strike the skin of the bass drum, a wooden stick with a soft mallet covered with felt or cork is used.

  Very often, bass drum beats are accompanied by cymbals or alternate with them, as in the fast-paced dance "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Grieg's "Peer Gynt". On the big drum, a quick alternation of beats is also possible - tremolo. To do this, use a stick with two mallets at both ends or timpani sticks. Rimksy-Korsakov used the bass drum tremolo very successfully in the instrumentation of Mussorgsky's symphonic painting "Night on Bald Mountain".

  At first, the big drum appeared only in "Turkish music", but from the beginning of the 19th century it was often used for sound-visual purposes: to imitate cannonade, thunder. Beethoven included three large drums in the "Battle of Vittoria" - to depict cannon shots. For the same purpose, Rimsky-Korsakov used this instrument in The Tale of Tsar Saltan, Shostakovich in the Eleventh Symphony, Prokofiev in the eighth scene of the opera War and Peace (the beginning of the Battle of Borodino). At the same time, the big drum sounds also where there is no onomatopoeia, and especially often - in noisy, solemn episodes of music.

  TRIANGLE

  one of the smallest instruments of the symphony orchestra. It is a steel rod bent in the shape of a triangle. It is hung on a vein string and struck with a small metal stick - a ringing, very clear sound is heard.

  The ways to play on the triangle are not very diverse. Sometimes only one sound is extracted on it, sometimes simple rhythmic patterns. Sounds good on a tremolo triangle.

  The triangle was first mentioned in the 15th century. In the 18th century it was used in an opera by the composer Grétry. Then the triangle became an invariable member of the "Turkish", i.e. exotic music, appearing along with bass drum and cymbals. This percussion group was used by Mozart in "The Abduction from the Seraglio", Beethoven in the "Turkish March" from "The Ruins of Athens" and some other composers who sought to reproduce the musical image of the East. The triangle is also interesting in graceful dance pieces: in Anitra's Dance from Grieg's Peer Gynt, Glinka's Waltz-Fantasy.

  BELLS,

  probably the most poetic percussion instrument. Its name comes from its ancient variety, where the sounding body was small bells tuned to a certain height. Later they were replaced with a set of metal plates of various sizes. They are arranged in two rows, like piano keys, and are fixed in a wooden box. The bells are played with two metal mallets. There is another variety of this instrument: keyboard bells. They have a piano keyboard and hammers that transmit vibrations from the keys to the metal plates. However, this chain of mechanisms is not very well reflected in their sound: it is not as bright and ringing as on ordinary bells. Nevertheless, yielding to hammer bells in the beauty of sound, keyboards surpass them in technical terms. Thanks to the piano keyboard, rather fast passages and polyphonic chords are possible on them. The timbre of the bells is silvery, gentle and sonorous. They sound in Mozart's Magic Flute when Papageno enters, in the aria with bells in Delibes' Lakma, in Rimsky-Korsakov's The Snow Maiden, when Mizgir, chasing the Snow Maiden, sees the lights of fireflies, in The Golden Cockerel when the Astrologer leaves.

  BELLS

  Since ancient times, the ringing of bells has called people to religious ceremonies and holidays, and also announced misfortunes. With the development of the opera, with the appearance of historical and patriotic plots in it, composers began to introduce bells into the opera house. The sounds of bells in Russian opera are especially richly represented: the solemn ringing in "Ivan Susanin", "The Tale of Tsar Saltan", "The Girl of Pskov" and "Boris Godunov" (in the coronation scene), the disturbing tocsin in "Prince Igor", the funeral chime in " Boris Godunov. In all these operas, real church bells sounded, which are placed behind the stage in large opera houses. However, not every opera house could afford to have its own belfry, so composers only occasionally introduced small bells into the orchestra - as Tchaikovsky did in the 1812 overture. Meanwhile, with the development of program music, it became increasingly necessary to imitate bell ringing in a symphony orchestra - so, after a while, orchestral bells were created - a set of steel pipes suspended from a frame. In Russia, these bells are called Italian. Each of the pipes is tuned to a specific tone; hit them with a metal hammer with a rubber gasket.

  Orchestral bells were used by Puccini in the opera "Tosca", Rachmaninov in the vocal-symphonic poem "The Bells". Prokofiev in "Alexander Nevsky" replaced the pipes with long metal bars.

  tambourine (tambourine)

  One of the oldest instruments in the world, the tambourine, appeared in the symphony orchestra in the 19th century. The device of this instrument is very simple: as a rule, it is a wooden hoop, on one side of which the skin is stretched. Metal trinkets are attached to the slot of the hoop (on the side), and small bells are strung inside, on a star-shaped string stretched. All this rings at the slightest shaking of the tambourine.

  The part of the tambourine, as well as other drums that do not have a certain height, is usually recorded not on the stave, but on a separate ruler, which is called a "thread".

  The methods of playing the tambourine are very diverse. First of all, these are sharp blows to the skin and beating complex rhythmic patterns on it. In these cases, both the skin and the bells make the sound. With a strong blow, the tambourine rings sharply, with a weak touch, a slight jingling of bells is heard. There are many ways when the performer makes only bells sound. This is a swift shaking of the tambourine - it gives a piercing tremolo; it is a gentle shaking; and finally, a spectacular trill is heard when the performer runs a wet thumb over the skin: this technique causes a lively ringing of bells.

  The tambourine is a characteristic instrument, therefore it is far from being used in every work. Usually he appears where the East or Spain should come to life in music: in Scheherazade and in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Spanish Capriccio, in the dance of Arab boys in the ballet Raymond by Glazunov, in the temperamental dances of the Polovtsy in Borodin’s Prince Igor, in Bizet's Carmen.

  CASTANETS

  The name "CASTANETS" in Spanish means "little chestnuts". Spain, most likely, was their homeland; there the castanets became a real national instrument. Castanets are made of hard wood: ebony or boxwood, castanets are similar in shape to shells.

  In Spain, two pairs of castanets were used to accompany dancing and singing; each pair was fastened with a cord that was pulled together around the thumb. The remaining fingers, remaining free, tapped intricate rhythms on the wooden shells. Each hand required its own size of castanets: in the left hand, the performer held shells of large volume, they emitted a lower tone and had to tap out the main rhythm. Castanets for the right hand were smaller; their tone was higher. Spanish dancers and dancers mastered this complex art to perfection, which they were taught from childhood. The dry, fervent clicking of castanets has always accompanied the temperamental Spanish dances: bolero, seguidillo, fandango.

  When composers wanted to introduce castanets into symphonic music, a simplified version of this instrument was designed - orchestral castanets. These are two pairs of shells mounted on the ends of a wooden handle. When they are shaken, a clicking sound is heard - a weak copy of real Spanish castanets.

  In the orchestra, castanets began to be used primarily in music of a Spanish nature: in Glinka's Spanish overtures "The Hunt of Aragon" and "Night in Madrid", in Rimsky-Korsakov's "Spanish Capriccio", in Spanish dances from Tchaikovsky's ballets, and in Western music - in " Carmen" by Bizet, in the symphonic works "Iberia" by Debussy, "Alborada del Gracioso" by Ravel. Some composers have taken castanets beyond the scope of Spanish music: Saint-Saens used them in the opera "Samson and Dalida", Prokofiev - in the third piano concerto.

  FRUSTA

  consists of two wooden boards, one of which has a handle, and the second is fixed with its lower end above the handle on a hinge - with a sharp swing or with the help of a tight spring, it produces a cotton on the other with its free end. As a rule, only separate, not too often successive claps forte, fortissimo are extracted on fruste.

  Frusta is a percussion instrument that does not have a certain height, therefore its part, like the part of a tambourine, is recorded not on a stave, but on a "thread".

  Frusta contenta is often found in modern scores. With two claps on this instrument, the third part of "Lorelei" from Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony begins.

  WOOD BLOCK

  Percussion instrument of Chinese origin. Before its appearance in the percussion group of the symphony orchestra, wood block was very popular in jazz.

  A wood block is a small, rectangular hardwood block with a deep, narrow cut in the front. The technique of playing the wood block is drumming: the sound is extracted by hitting the upper plane of the instrument with sticks from a snare drum, wooden mallets, sticks with rubber heads. The resulting sound is sharp, high, characteristically clattering, indefinite in pitch.

  As a percussion instrument, indefinite in height, the wood block is notated on a "thread" or on a combination of rulers.

  TEMPLE BLOCK

  An instrument of Korean or North Chinese origin, an attribute of a Buddhist cult. The tool has a rounded shape, hollow inside, with a deep cut in the middle (like a laughing mouth), and is made of hard wood.

  Like most other "exotic" percussion instruments, the temple block was first spread in jazz, from where it penetrated into the composition of the symphony orchestra.

  The sound of a temple block is more gloomy and deeper than that of a wood block close to it, it has a fairly certain pitch, so using a set of temple blocks, you can get melodic phrases - for example, S. Slonimsky used these instruments in "Concert -buff".

  Temple blocks are played by striking the top with rubber-tipped sticks, wooden hammers, and snare drum sticks.

  GUIRO, reco-reco

  These instruments are of Latin American origin, they are similar both in their constructive principle and in the way they play.

  They are made from a bamboo segment (reco-reco), from a dried gourd (guiro), or from another hollow object that is a resonator. On one side of the tool, a series of notches or notches is made. In some cases, a plate with a corrugated surface is mounted. These notches are carried out with a special wooden stick, as a result of which a high, sharp, with a characteristic crackling sound is extracted. The most common variety of these related instruments is the guiro. I. Stravinsky was the first to introduce this instrument into the symphony orchestra - in "The Rite of Spring". Reko-reko is found in Slonimsky's "Concert-buff".

  MARACA

  is a round or egg-shaped wooden rattle on the handle and stuffed with shot, grains, pebbles or other bulk materials. These folk instruments are made, as a rule, from a coconut or a hollow dried gourd on a natural handle. Maracas are very popular in dance music orchestras, in jazz. As part of a symphony orchestra, S. Prokofiev was the first to use this instrument ("Dance of the Antillean Girls" from the ballet "Romeo and Juliet", cantata "Alexander Nevsky"). Now a couple of instruments are usually used - the performer holds them in both hands and, shaking, extracts a sound. Like other percussion instruments without a specific pitch, the maracas is notated on the "thread". According to the principle of sound production, maracas are close to chocalo and cameso. These are metal - check - or wooden - cameso - cylinders, filled, like maracas, with some kind of loose substance. In some models, the side wall is tightened with a leather membrane. Both chekalo and cameso are louder and sharper than maracas. They are also held with both hands, shaken vertically or horizontally, or rotated.

  KABACA

  At first, this instrument of Afro-Brazilian origin was popular in orchestras of Latin American music, from where it received its further distribution. Outwardly, the tavern resembles a doubled maracas, covered with a net with large beads strung on it. The performer holds the instrument in one hand and either simply beats it with the fingers of the other hand, or scrolls the grid with beads with a tangential movement of the palm. In the latter case, a rustling, longer sound, reminiscent of the sound of maracas, occurs. One of the first kabatsu was used by Slonimsky in "Concert-buff".

  KONG

  This instrument is of Cuban origin. After modernization, the congas became widely used in dance music orchestras, jazz, and even in works of serious music. Congas have the following device: on a wooden cylindrical body (height from 17 to 22 cm) skin is stretched and fixed with a metal hoop (its tension is regulated from the inside with screws). The metal rim does not rise above the level of the skin: this is what determines such a characteristic conga playing with the palms - con le mani or fingers - con le dita. Two congas with different diameters are usually connected to each other by a common holder. The smaller cong sounds about a third higher than the wider one. The sound of the conga is high, specifically "empty" and varies depending on the place and method of impact.

  Singles

  HARP

  One of the oldest musical instruments of mankind. It originated from a bow with a stretched string, which sounded melodious when fired. Later, the sound of the bowstring was used as a signal. The man who first pulled three or four bowstrings on a bow, which, due to their unequal length, made sounds of different heights, became the creator of the first harp. Even in Egyptian frescoes of the 15th century BC, harps still resemble a bow. And these harps are not the most ancient: the oldest archaeologists found during excavations of the Sumerian city of Ur in Mesopotamia - it was made four and a half thousand years ago, in the XXVI century BC.

  In ancient times, in the East, in Greece and Rome, the harp remained one of the most common and beloved instruments. It was often used to accompany singing or playing other instruments. The harp appeared early in medieval Europe: here Ireland was famous for its special art of playing it, where folk singers - bards - sang their sagas to its accompaniment.

  The harp is a stringed plucked instrument. It is believed that the beauty of her appearance surpasses all her neighbors in the orchestra. Its graceful outlines hide the shape of a triangle, the metal frame is decorated with carvings. Strings (47-48) of different lengths and thicknesses are pulled onto the frame, which form a transparent mesh. At the beginning of the 19th century, the famous piano master Erar improved the ancient harp. He found a way to quickly change the length of the strings and thus the pitch of the harp.

  The virtuoso possibilities of the harp are quite peculiar: wide chords, passages from arpeggios, glissando - sliding the hand along all the strings tuned to some chord, harmonics are excellent on it.

  The role of the harp in the orchestra is not so much emotional as colorful. The harp often accompanies various instruments in the orchestra; at other times, she is tasked with spectacular solos. There are many of them in the ballets of Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, in the works of Rimsky-Korsakov. Of the Western European composers of the 19th century, the harp was most widely used by Berlioz, Meyerbeer, Wagner and Liszt. The well-known part of two harps in the "Waltz" from Berlioz's "Fantastic Symphony" marked the beginning of that virtuoso style that has become the leading one in the last three centuries. Earlier, from the moment of its appearance in the symphony orchestra of the 18th century until Berlioz, the harp imitated the sound of a lute, a guitar (as in Glinka's "The Aragonese Hunt") or a harpsichord. The harp was also used in cases where it was necessary to evoke an association with antiquity. Gluck's Orpheus or Beethoven's Prometheus are examples.

  The orchestra usually uses one or two harps, but in some cases their number is increased. Thus, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Mlada" has three harps, while Wagner's "Rheingold Gold" has six.

  PIANO

  The source of sound in the PIANO is metal strings, which begin to sound from the impact of felt-covered wooden hammers, and the hammers are driven by finger pressure on the keys.

  The first keyboard instruments, already known at the beginning of the 15th century, were the harpsichord and clavichord (in Italian - clavicembalo). On the clavichord, the strings were vibrated by metal levers - tangents, on the harpsichord - by crow feathers, and later - by metal hooks. The sound of these instruments was dynamically monotonous and faded quickly.

  The first hammer-action piano, so named because it played both forte and piano sounds, was most likely built by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1709. This new instrument quickly gained recognition and, after many improvements, became the modern concert grand. A piano was built in 1826 for home music-making.

  The piano is widely known as a solo concert instrument. But sometimes he also acts as an ordinary instrument of the orchestra. Russian composers, starting with Glinka, began to introduce the piano (piano part) into the orchestra, sometimes together with the harp, in order to recreate the sonority of the harp. This is how it is used in Bayan's songs in Glinka's "Ruslan and Lyudmila", in "Sadko" and in Rimsky-Korsakov's "May Night". Sometimes the piano reproduces the sound of a bell, as in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov. But not always it only imitates other timbres. Some composers use it in the orchestra as a decorating tool that can introduce sonority and new colors into the orchestra. So, Debussy wrote in the symphonic suite "Spring" the piano part for four hands. Finally, sometimes it is considered as a kind of percussion instrument with a strong, dry tone. The sharp, grotesque scherzo in Shostakovich's First Symphony is an example of this.

  ORGAN

  Keyboard wind instrument - ORGAN - was known in ancient times. In ancient organs, air was pumped with bellows by hand. In medieval Europe, the organ became an instrument of church worship. It was in the spiritual environment of the 17th century that organ polyphonic art was born, the best representatives of which were Frescobaldi, Bach and Handel.

  The organ is a gigantic instrument with many different timbres.

  "This is a whole orchestra, which in skillful hands can convey everything, express everything," Balzac wrote about him. Indeed, the range of the organ exceeds that of all instruments in the orchestra combined. The organ includes bellows for air supply, a system of pipes of various designs and sizes (in modern organs, the number of pipes reaches 30,000), several manual keyboards - manuals and a foot pedal. The largest pipes reach a height of 10 meters or more, the height of the smallest - 8 millimeters. This or that coloring of a sound depends on their device.

  A set of pipes of a single timbre is called a register. Large cathedral organs have more than a hundred registers: in the Notre Dame organ, their number reaches 110. The coloring of the sounds of individual registers resembles the timbre of a flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bass clarinet, trumpet, cello. The richer and more varied the registers, the more opportunities the performer gets, because the art of organ playing is the art of good registration, i.e. skillful use of all the technical resources of the tool.

  In the latest orchestral music (especially theatrical), the organ was primarily used for sound-visual purposes - where it was necessary to reproduce the church atmosphere. Liszt, for example, in his symphonic poem "The Battle of the Huns", with the help of an organ, opposed the Christian world to the barbarians.

  The composition of the symphony orchestra was formed in the era of the Viennese classics.

  It was the second half of the 18th-first quarter of the 19th centuries, when the great composers Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven worked. They created that high type of instrumental music, in which all the richness of content was embodied in a perfect artistic form - it was a symphony.

  

  Symphony Orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater
  An orchestra is a large group of instrumental musicians. But how big? A large symphony orchestra can have up to 110 musicians, and a small one can have no more than 50.

  

  Ludwig van Beethoven
  The composition of the symphony orchestra evolved gradually from the 16th century. The "classical" composition of the symphony orchestra was formed in the scores of L. van Beethoven (according to modern concepts, it was a small symphony orchestra). But for the performance of his Ninth Symphony, written in 1824, Beethoven needed an expanded orchestra with some additional instruments - and now it was a large orchestra, it included a small flute, contrabassoon, trombones, a triangle, cymbals and a bass drum. Some composers include even more instruments needed to perform their compositions.
  The basis of the symphony orchestra is made up of 4 groups of instruments: bowed strings, woodwinds, brass winds, and percussion. If necessary, the orchestra includes other instruments: harp, piano, organ, celesta, harpsichord.
  String instruments: violins, violas, cellos, double basses.
  Woodwinds: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone with all their varieties, as well as a number of folk instruments - balaban, duduk, zhaleyka, pipe, zurna.
  Brass: horn, trumpet, cornet, flugelhorn, trombone, tuba.

  Drums(including noise): timpani, xylophone, vibraphone, bells, drums, triangle, cymbals, tambourine, castanets, tam-tam and others.

  Seating arrangements for the musicians of the symphony orchestra

  

  The conductor decides how to seat the orchestra. He also owns the artistic interpretation of the work.
  On the console in front of the conductor lies score(complete musical notation of all parts of orchestral instruments).
  The instrument parts of each group are recorded one below the other, starting with the highest sounding instruments and ending with the lowest.

  

  The location of the performers of a modern symphony orchestra is aimed at achieving a coherent sonority. In the 50-70s. 20th century received the most widespread "American seating": the first and second violins are placed to the left of the conductor; on the right - violas and cellos; in the depths - woodwinds and brass, double basses; left - drums.
  There is also "German seating". Its difference from the "American" one is that the cellos change places with the second violins, and the double basses are on the left. Brass instruments are to the right, in the back of the stage, and the horns move to the left. Drums are closer to the right wings.

  The symphony orchestra consists of three groups of musical instruments: strings (violins, violas, cellos, double basses), winds (brass and wood) and a group of percussion instruments. The number of musicians in groups may vary depending on the piece being performed. Often the composition of a symphony orchestra is expanded, additional and atypical musical instruments are introduced: harp, celesta, saxophone, etc. The number of musicians of a symphony orchestra in some cases can exceed 200 musicians!

  Depending on the number of musicians in groups, a small and a large symphony orchestra are distinguished; among the varieties of small, there are theater orchestras participating in the musical accompaniment of operas and ballets.

  Chamber

  Such an orchestra differs from a symphony by a significantly smaller composition of musicians and a smaller variety of groups of instruments. In the chamber orchestra, the number of wind and percussion instruments has also been reduced.

  String

  This orchestra consists only of stringed bowed instruments - violin, viola, cello, double bass.

  Wind

  The composition of the brass band includes a variety of wind instruments - wood and brass, as well as a group of percussion instruments. The brass band includes, along with musical instruments characteristic of a symphony orchestra (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, trumpet, horn, trombone, tuba), and specific instruments (wind alto, tenor, baritone, euphonium, flugelhorn, sousaphone and etc.), which are not found in other types of orchestras.

  In our country, military brass bands are very popular, performing, along with pop and jazz compositions, special applied military music: fanfares, marches, hymns and the so-called garden and park repertoire - waltzes and old marches. Brass bands are much more mobile than symphony and chamber bands, they can play music while moving. There is a special genre of performance - an orchestral defile, in which the performance of music by a brass band is combined with the simultaneous performance of complex choreographic performances by musicians.

  In large opera and ballet theaters, you can find special brass bands - theater bands. Gangs participate directly in the stage production itself, where, according to the plot, the musicians are acting characters.

  Pop

  As a rule, this is a special composition of a small symphony orchestra (variety symphony orchestra), which includes, among other things, a group of saxophones, specific keyboards, electronic instruments (synthesizer, electric guitar, etc.) and a pop rhythm section.

  Jazz

  A jazz orchestra (band) consists, as a rule, of a wind group, which includes groups of trumpets, trombones and saxophones expanded compared to other orchestras, a group of strings, represented by violins and double bass, as well as a jazz rhythm section.

  Orchestra of Folk Instruments

  One of the variants of the folk ensemble is the orchestra of Russian folk instruments. It consists of groups of balalaikas and domras, includes gusli, button accordions, special Russian wind instruments - horns and zhaleika. Such orchestras often include instruments typical of a symphony orchestra - flutes, oboe, horns and percussion instruments. The idea of ​​creating such an orchestra was proposed by the balalaika player Vasily Andreev at the end of the 19th century.

  The orchestra of Russian folk instruments is not the only type of folk ensembles. There are, for example, Scottish bagpipe orchestras, Mexican wedding orchestras, in which there is a group of various guitars, trumpets, ethnic percussion, etc.