Customer Reviews

Anatomy of the Orchestra

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Anyone with a more than passing interest in Orchestral music should try this one. Especially good for young players in school or civic orchestras. It desecribes what everyone's job is, how they play different effects, hangups, foibles, etc...

Tells you why Horns don't like sitting in front of percussion. Why the tympanist won't play other percussion, but the the rest of the kitchen dept is running around playing 3 and four different instruments.

It talks a lot about keys, notes, and has many copies of the score for illustration, but if you don't read music don't despair... your enjoyment should not be diminished.

When to disagree with the conductor...

And describes the curious relations amongst all those infighting violins.

This is a well-written and thought-out text about the modern day symphony orchestra. It provides and analysis of every instrument in the orchestra, it's purposes, the sound it produces, and the possibilities. Norman Del Mar's book is a must for music students and professionals alike.

The thing to understand about this brilliant and indispensable handbook is that it is NOT an orchestration textbook. Orchestration textbooks look at the instruments of the orchestra purely from the viewpoint of what composers or arrangers need to know. This book, on the other hand, dissects the orchestra with a view to explaining what a conductor needs to know, and it is also useful for players who want to understand more about the other sections of the orchestra (or about their own!) and for serious listeners and musicians of all kinds who want to understand the workings and the resources of a modern symphony orchestra.

Naturally there is some overlap between the information presented here and what would be found in an orchestration textbook, but this would be a (very valuable) supplement rather than the main textbook for a student of orchestration. (Likewise, in the opposite direction, conducting students will of course benefit from an in-depth study of orchestration as a crucial supplement to what this book will teach them!)

There are other guides to the orchestra and its instruments for youngsters and laypersons, written at a more elementary level -- but for the professional or aspiring professional musician, this book is both unique and uniquely valuable.

Great book for music lovers, proffessional musicians and composers. Gives you a real insight into the orchestra and individual instruments. Practical and well written. Highly recommended.

This is by no means a beginning orchestration book. A book like "The Technique of Orchestration" by Kent Kennan should be read before attempting "Anatomy of the Orchestra." This book is almost entirely filled with in-depth, graduate level information that is difficult for an amateur to understand or retain. The chapter on 'Other Instruments' should not be entirely trusted, not because of faulty information, but due to lack of modern practicality. Simply consult someone that plays a strange instrument if you have questions.

This is an elemental resources for all advanced students of composition and conducting.

I doubt if you can really teach orchestration,like composition; for whatever you are doing is simply revisiting in rote formations of what has already been done, and what has already been done, and what already has been done should be heard in its original form anyway. A book that merely speaks and addresses problems is the most virulent, viable route, I think, Give me what's the most resonant parts of the instrument,tell me where that is please! also tell me what is rather dull, what is noise-like, and what "lays" best in what register.Then how do we come to mix timbres? who can tell you that if you have an original vision for your music,if you write music, If you have many friends who play all the instruments of the orchestra that's the best route as well, real live expositions cannot be replaced by a text.Learning orchestration is about someone being there to ask questions on why you did what you did, and why you didn't do it another way! Texts are merely stepping stones anyway, unless you got "axes" to grind as Gunther Schuller.(incorreect tempi)
Seasoned conductor Del Mar at least has other interesting books on Brahms and Beethoven and potpourris of other lesser knowns on the problems of conducting and indirectly exposing the problems that exist within the orchestral repertoire.This is a facet of orchestration often overlooked. Everyone had some problem at some time that needs to be corrected by an experienced conductor. For if you simply play the music exactly as written it would be rather boring,unispired; how does one explain the phenomenon of; take five conductors, each rehearsing the same piece with the same orcehstra, and you will get/render five different conceptions of timbre, gestural differences, rhythm, balance and meaning. So music breathes I guess, and an orcehstration book will only tell you what to put into the right or wrong pegs in the systems of notations. Orchestrations, the orchestra itself is/are becoming reaching a dinosaur status, with commissioning funds drying up; or only reserved to academia-bound prize winners. Especially now since some orchestras are resorting to playing film music,with the film in the back or not; as interesting as that is, the orchestrations of the cinema have a kind of fixed entity, a horizon you can see, and who would rather listen to music for "Forrest Gump"? than brilliant orcehstrators as Stravinsky or Boulez, or Eotvos, Berio or Xenakis, or Sciarrino.Learning to write film music is not learning about the orchestra, for there still needs someone to develop its timbre, otherwise it dies. This is a good book nonethless, Del Mar has marvelous insights into problems with ample examples not overdone/overdetermined as the Berlioz-Strauss.I learned orcehstration simply by looking at the best (those mentioned above) and re-translating that into whatever I thought I could see as my music,my timbre, or conception of sound.

I am a music novice and I am interested in Orchester Music and set up. I think it should be pointed out that there are no pictures of any kind of orchester instruments. The book is absolutly not for casual readers. As most other reviews say the book is great for advanced music readers, and I am certain that it is. The only pictures what so ever are musical scores!