The Orchestra CD-ROM

Subject: Music
Level: Secondary
Age Group: 14 - 16
Order Number: 11090

This resource considers the development of orchestral music from the end of the Baroque period onwards. It was written in response to the AQA GCSE Music, Area of Study on the development of the orchestra. It considers:

• The makeup of the orchestra over time:
• The orchestra Lully used in the Baroque period.
• How Haydn and then Mozart introduced new instruments by how the woodwind section was consolidated.
• Beethoven’s further additions to the orchestra.
• The interest in timbre initiated by Berlioz and employed by orchestrators including Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Bruckner, Brahms and Mahler.
• The breakdown of the instrumentation used in significant composers’ works.
• The improvements made to instruments in the nineteenth century.
• The inventions of brass instruments by Adolphe Sax and his work on the bass clarinet.
• The development of valves for brass instruments.
• Boehm’s work on the fingering system of the flute.
• The role of each section of the orchestra.
• The evolution firstly of the woodwind section, and then, as instrumental technology improved, the brass section.
• Finally, at the height of the Romantic period the exploration of percussion timbre and the inclusion of tubular bells, the tam-tam, drums and triangle.

The resource also considers the repertoire of the orchestra, beginning with the Suite, with a breakdown of individual movements. It also looks at the Symphony and the Concerto, from their origins in the Italian Overture.

23 PowerPoints with read me file and Orchestrations from 1865-1901.