Berlioz's Orchestration Treatise

Berlioz, Edited by Hugh Macdonald

Berlioz’s Orchestration Treatise is a classic textbook which has been used as a guide to orchestration and as a source book for the understanding both of Berlioz’s music and of orchestral practice in the nineteenth century. This was the first English translation of Berlioz’s complete text since 1856, and it is accompanied throughout by Hugh Macdonald’s extensive and authoritative commentary on the instruments of Berlioz’s time and on his own orchestral practice, as revealed in his scores. It also includes extracts from Berlioz’s writings on instruments in his Memoirs and in his many articles for the Parisian press. The Treatise has been highly valued both for its technical information about instruments but also for its poetic and visionary approach to the art of instrumentation. Berlioz was not only one of the great orchestrators of the nineteenth century, he was also the author with the clearest understanding of the art.

Bibliographic Details

13 b/w illus. 187 music examples

Contents

• List of illustrations
• Preface
• A note on the edition
• A note on the translation
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• The Treatise
• Introduction
• 1. Bowed strings
• 2. Plucked strings
• 3. Strings with keyboard
• 4. Wind: introduction
• 5. Wind with reeds
• 6. Wind without reeds
• 7. Wind with keyboard
• 8. Brass with mouthpiece
• 9. Woodwind with mouthpiece
• 10. Voices
• 11. Pitched percussion
• 12. Unpitched percussion
• 13. New instruments
• 14. The orchestra
• 15. The conductor and his art
• Appendix: Berliozs writing on instruments
• Bibliography
• General index
• Index of Berliozs works.