Instrumentally, all orchestral-brass instruments are available, which include trumpets, French horns, tenor and bass trombones, and tuba. There are also some more obscure instruments, such as cimbasso and contrabass tuba, these being the current darlings of the action film score, thanks to the likes of Hans Zimmer, but less often in use in symphony orchestras.
Orchestral Tools Berlin Brass 1.1
This range of orchestral patches covers most of the standard instruments and articulations of a smaller, more intimate sounding orchestra. Designed for students and hobbyists, the original samples are part of the VSCO2 Community edition but have now been scripted for the full version of Kontakt to include legato, round robins and dynamics via the modwheel. Weighing in at just over a gigabyte in size, the samples cover strings, brass, woodwinds, percussion and even two pianos and a church organ. These are all available as separate patches but there are also clever multis which group the instruments into ensembles for easy chord, arpeggio and tutti playing. The bonus harp instrument is a heavenly addition to this fully-featured orchestral package.
At the beginning of the 20th century, symphony orchestras were larger, better funded, and better trained than previously; consequently, composers could compose larger and more ambitious works. The works of Gustav Mahler were particularly innovative; in his later symphonies, such as the mammoth Symphony No. 8, Mahler pushes the furthest boundaries of orchestral size, employing huge forces. By the late Romantic era, orchestras could support the most enormous forms of symphonic expression, with huge string sections, massive brass sections and an expanded range of percussion instruments. With the recording era beginning, the standards of performance were pushed to a new level, because a recorded symphony could be listened to closely and even minor errors in intonation or ensemble, which might not be noticeable in a live performance, could be heard by critics. As recording technologies improved over the 20th and 21st centuries, eventually small errors in a recording could be "fixed" by audio editing or overdubbing. Some older conductors and composers could remember a time when simply "getting through" the music as best as possible was the standard. Combined with the wider audience made possible by recording, this led to a renewed focus on particular star conductors and on a high standard of orchestral execution.[7]
The techniques of polystylism and polytempo[31] music have led a few 20th and 21st century composers to write music where multiple orchestras or ensembles perform simultaneously. These trends have brought about the phenomenon of polyconductor music, wherein separate sub-conductors conduct each group of musicians. Usually, one principal conductor conducts the sub-conductors, thereby shaping the overall performance. In Percy Grainger's The Warriors which includes three conductors: the primary conductor of the orchestra, a secondary conductor directing an off-stage brass ensemble, and a tertiary conductor directing percussion and harp. One example in the late-century orchestral music is Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen, for three orchestras, which are placed around the audience. This way, the "sound masses" could be spatialized, as in an electroacoustic work. Gruppen was premiered in Cologne, in 1958, conducted by Stockhausen, Bruno Maderna and Pierre Boulez. It has been performed in 1996 by Simon Rattle, John Carewe and Daniel Harding.[32]
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