Beyond Anachronism: Orchestras and Orchestration in the Twenty-First Century

Hugh Macdonald, Berlioz's Orchestration Treatise: A Translation and Commentary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. xxxix + 388 pp. ISBN 0 521 23953 2.

The Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra, edited by Colin Lawson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. xiv + 296 pp. ISBN 0 521 00132 3.

Robert Philip, Performing Music in the Age of Recording. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004. [viii] + 293 pp. ISBN 0 300 10246 1.

John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. xx + 614 pp. ISBN 0 19 816434 3.

John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw's The Birth of the Orchestra: History of an Institution, 1650–1815 traces the orchestra's emergence from late-Renaissance instrumental ensembles through to the end of the Napoleonic era. The Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra, in chapters dealing with 'The History of the Orchestra' (Tim Carter and Erik Levi) and 'The Development of Musical Instruments' (Robert Barclay), sketches a similar story (much more briefly, of course) but extends it into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Robert Philip's Performing Music in the Age of Recording, although (as its title suggests) quite broad in its scope, offers an absorbing perspective on the emergence of the professional symphony orchestra as an institution. One important strand running through all of these is the relationship between the disposition of instruments in the orchestra and the demands of the repertory – in other words, the relationship between orchestras and orchestration. Here, the Berlioz treatise – so intelligently presented in Hugh Macdonald's new English translation and commentary – is a central document.

It would be tempting to interrogate the metaphor of human development proposed in the Spitzer/Zaslaw title – tracing the idea of 'birth' in Rome, through adolescence in Mannheim (all those rockets and sighs), to coming of age in Vienna (though surely not, if 1815 is a significant date, with Wellington's Victory),¹ through maturity in Paris, London and Leipzig, to what? – senility or apotheosis? In this article, however, I wish to concentrate more particularly on the implications of their subtitle: History of an Institution.

I should declare a particular kind of interest in the orchestra as institution. After many years in a university music department, I have found myself managing a symphony orchestra. This orchestra describes itself (in, for example, its strategic plan) as 'a full-time, full-strength, professional symphony orchestra'. The implication of such a description is that the terms 'full-time', 'full-strength' and 'professional' refer to verifiable and widely accepted standards.

No symphony orchestra that claims such a profile survives on box-office earnings. As Bramwell Tovey observes, 'It is an axiom of orchestral life that it is impossible to make a financial profit from the establishment of a full-time orchestra.'² My orchestra is typical in relying on a mix of government funding, corporate sponsorship and private benefaction. Any such orchestra has a major stake in preserving the sense of an institutional standard and all that that implies about numbers of musicians, working conditions, artistic standards and the (core) repertory that ought to be within its capabilities. In other words, it is important to persuade governments, sponsors and benefactors that what they need to support is not arbitrary; that in order to perform the great symphonic literature an ensemble of predetermined size and composition is needed. There is often a certain amount of tension between this view and the preference of governments and state funding agencies to regard the level of their investment, rather than the musical requirements, as the fixed point.

Spitzer and Zaslaw include a cautionary tale for orchestral funders and managers. In 1761 the musical establishment at Versailles was reconfigured in a way that brought it into line with European standards – strings in four parts, pairs of wind instruments, trumpets and...