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Wind - String Balances

Posted by Mike Porper (A) on March 24, 2011 at 13:03:23

In Reply to: The best period-instrument Eroica you've never heard... posted by C.B. on March 23, 2011 at 08:56:54:

"Ideal balance between strings and winds. In Beethoven's day the wind component roughly equaled the strings".

That's not true.

In fact, there was no wind-string balance "ideal". That's a late 20th cent invention; specifically, a HIP one. During Beethoven's day, nobody - nobody - walked around saying anything such as "ve moost have de strings eqvalink de vinds, und no shtronger".

Reading through Carse, Khoury, and others, what emerges about the period is this:

1. Orchestras varied in size according to available musicians, and mostly available money. Money. That was then, as now, the key to whether an orchestra rounded up for a concert would have a lot of strings or a little.

2. There were no orchestral institutions such as there are today. What existed were court orchestras, supported by some prince, or duke, or some royal family. Obviously, they could only afford to pay for so many players, so, also obviously, these orchestras were small. The other orhestras which did exist were multipurpose, mostly used for operas, and had an ever shifting personel, growing larger or smaller depending on who the promoters for a given concert were and how much money - money! - they could raise for the event. The more money, the larger the orchestra.

3. Whenever composers could get a big orchestra, they were all over it, like HIPs on non-vibrato. Thus, Beethoven himself, heard mostly small orchestras before the 5th, and went along with it. But, once he heard a large orchestra, he never went back, and demanded that his promoters get as big an orchestra as possible.

4. Anyone who's studied voice leading knows [I'll assume that at least some HIP conductors have, just as I assume that they can actually read music, know what a V-I cadence is; understand tonic-dominant relationships; etc. But, you never know], you may easily determine the relative importance of any section of the orchestra by studying the voice leading of the score. Voice Leading.

And, gosh, big surprise, most of that's given to the strings. Here's a little test for every wind-happy HIPper - remove the string parts. Just cut them out. Just excise them. Completely. OK. Now, play the piece. What do you get? Just supporting parts, mostly. So much for the equivalence of wind parts to strings.

Oh, and 2 celli? How late 20th century can you get? Give me a break.

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