The orchestra and its instruments . age, taken from an oldprint in the British Museum, represents Handelseated at the clavecin (a cembalo with two keyboards),of which the lid is raised. On his right hand is thevioloncellist. Before his eye are two violins and twoflutes. The solo singers are near him, on his left,close to the clavecin. The rest of the instrumentalistsare behind him, out of sight. Thus his directionsand his glances would control the Concertino whowould transmit, in their turn the chief conductorswishes to the Concerto Grossi and they, in their turn,to the Ripienists. In place of
The orchestra and its instruments . age, taken from an oldprint in the British Museum, represents Handelseated at the clavecin (a cembalo with two keyboards),of which the lid is raised. On his right hand is thevioloncellist. Before his eye are two violins and twoflutes. The solo singers are near him, on his left,close to the clavecin. The rest of the instrumentalistsare behind him, out of sight. Thus his directionsand his glances would control the Concertino whowould transmit, in their turn the chief conductorswishes to the Concerto Grossi and they, in their turn,to the Ripienists. In place of the quasi-militarydiscipline of the modern Orchestra, controlled underthe baton of a chief conductor the different bodies ofthe Handelian Orchestra governed one another withelasticity; and it was the incisive rhythm of the cem-balo that put the whole mass into motion. x We rarely hear any of Handels music with exactlythe Orchestra for which he wrote. All conductorsrealize the difficulty of having anyone improvise 1 Romain HANDEL CONDUCTING THE ORCHESTRA Handel at the Cembalo THE ORCHESTRA 191 on the organ, or piano, to fill in the bald and emptyspaces. Moreover, it would confuse the singersand terrify the audience. Improvising at concertshas gone out of fashion. This was even realized in Mozarts day; and soMozart wrote those beautiful additional accom-paniments to The Messiah, which give to that ora-torio no little of its grace and nobility. Mozart, aswe know, was a genius in instrumentation and evenin his day people demanded something different fromthe Handelian concert. Handel, however, was always seeking for noveleffects. He was one of the first to introduce the horninto the Orchestra and he was the first to assert theexpressive personality of the violoncello. x He alsoappreciated the fantastic and lugubrious quality ofthe bassoons; experimented with all kinds of instru-ments; and used the kettledrums as a solo for Ju-piters oath in Semele. This was so unusual and
Size: 1586px × 1575px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectmusicalinstruments
