Daniels' Orchestral Music by David Daniels, David W. Oertel, and David A Rahbee (review)

There was a period of ten years between the fourth and fifth editions of Orchestral Music. A gap of a mere seven years has seen the appearance of the sixth. While the gap has been reduced, there has been a quantum increase in the heft of this basic reference work. While the fifth edition weighed in at five pounds and 885 pages, the sixth edition presents itself at seven and a half pounds spanning some 1,443 pages. In fact, the sixth edition is so heavy that some users—the present reviewer is an example—will find it a chore just to lift it. If one might offer a solution to the authors and publisher, they might consider breaking the seventh edition into two volumes. This can easily be accomplished by putting the front matter and the main index in volume one and the various indexes and supplementary material in volume two. Had this been done in the sixth edition, we would have been presented with a volume one of ca. 958 pages and a volume two of ca. 485 pages. An added bonus for the user would be the ease in consulting the supplements and indexes without having to abandon one's place in the main body of the work. The preceding contains virtually all the reviewer's negative feelings about the work.

Over the past fifty years, spanning six editions, Daniels' Orchestral Musichas grown from a modest tool best used in conjunction with other tools, such as the two-volume catalog of the Edwin A. Fleisher Music Collection. Through the single-handed efforts of David Daniels, the work has grown both qualitatively and, as described in the preceding paragraph, quantitatively. The first three editions employed a variant of the standard notation for the description of orchestral forces—especially in the area of wind instrument doubling. Daniels quickly discovered the inadequacy of this and took steps to indicate more fully the nature of the players and the parts they are expected to play. This was made possible to a great extent by Daniels's insistence on firsthand inspection of the scores in order to determine, with no room for doubt or confusion, the precise nature of the orchestral forces involved. The authors have indicated that over four thousand entries had been updated. They also admit, however, that there remain about two hundred entries still displaying possibly ambiguous information.

One must take a moment to acknowledge the multiple authors of the present edition. At the time of publication of the fifth edition, Daniels announced that it would be the last edition he would edit. Oertel and Rahbee were named at that time as the new generation of the Davidic dynasty. Daniels remained in contact with Oertel and Rahbee until shortly before his death in April 2020, but the torch had been passed five years previously with the publication of the fifth edition.

As with previous editions, the listing for each work provides specific and accurate descriptions of the forces required—both in terms of instruments and number of players. Timings are also provided, although one must always take timings with several grains of salt, since even the same conductors have performed works with varying durations. In the case of multimovement works, a listing of each movement is given with tempo indications and, if appropriate, the names of the movements. Timings are also provided for each movement, with the previous caution applicable here as well.

The various indexes and appendixes are explained in some detail in the present writer's reviews of the fourth edition ( Notes62, no. 4 [June 2006]: 949–50) and the fifth edition ( Notes72, no. 4 [June 2016]: 768–69). Needless to say, all this supplementary matter has been expanded to include titles added to the work since the previous edition. The present writer is loath to plagiarize from himself to...