Customer Reviews

Orchestration (Dover Books on Music)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In Los Angeles, among the top composers (Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith to list 2) on the A list, this is THE book. Forsythe covers the subject with characteristic dry British wit, but his referencing is impeccable, including covering specialty instruments (like the Serpent, Wagnerian tubas, and many more) that are simply not covered in the other titles. His explanations are indepth, accurate, and still very usable. If you can only afford one book, get this one.

The introduction to Cecil Forsyth's "Orchestration" is by William Bolcolm, a prominent American composer very much of our time. (His opera "A View from the Bridge" premiered November 1999 and was favorably reviewed in "Newsweek", "Time Magazine", and "The New York Times.") As William Bolcolm points out, very little of this book is out of date--a few tiny, insignificant bits; it remains "eminently usable". It also remains head and shoulders above the scores of tedious, dull, and perfunctory orchestration manuals subsequently published. One of its many virtues is its immersion in what Mr. Bolcolm calls "technical culture": It imparts to you a sense of what it's like to play the various orchestral instruments. Future fetishists (those wishing to obliterate the past and present in sacrificial rite to a future they can know as little as you and I) take note: what is best is what endures.

An excellent and authoritative text. There have been some changes in the capabilities of the instruments that are not reflected in the text, and of course it is missing all of the more modern and electronic instruments (this has the same unabridged text as the 1935 edition), but it's still very useful and well-written.

One (small) lack: after reading the section on the harp, I still greatly prefer the standard on that subject, "Harp Scoring" by Stanley Chaloupka, for discussion of composing or orchestrating for the harp.

I feel this book should be in the library of anyone serious about orchestration or composing for an orchestra.

This is one of my very favorite books--not merely one of my very favorite orchestration books, not merely one of my very favorite music theory books. I read it again and again--sometimes for information, sometimes for entertainment. Its prose is lively and stylish; its advice is practical and to the point; it amuses; it inspires. By the bye, William Bolcom's new introduction is my favorite introduction to any book.

Also recommended: PENTATONIC SCALES FOR THE JAZZ-ROCK KEYBOARDIST by Jeff Burns.

I am an amateur orchestrationist and I loved this book. The history of the instruments gave me a greater understanding of each group and their strengths and weaknesses. I hope everyone who has an interest in instrumentation would read and study this book.

While Forsythe offers a great deal of depth and detail, much of it I found superfluous unless you are a musicologist, and I am a musicologist. But now my primary interest is orchestrating. The author includes too much historical background on the various instruments, such as the evolution of the horn, which you only need to know if you are analyzing Hadyn symphonies. If you are orchestrating a new symphony, you need to know current instrumental capabilities and practices, and the Forsythe book is now nearly 100 years old. Most of his information remains valid, but how will you know what isn't?
I read this and a few other classics (Berlioz/Strauss, Rimsky, Piston) -- all of which are worthwhile -- before getting some coaching from a composition professor, who recognized that I needed a newer text. He recommended Adler or Kennan. So I bought the fourth edition of Kennan's orchestration book, a good place to start. Continue later with Forsythe and the others once you've acquired the up-to-date basics.

Cecil Forsyth's Orchestration is a fascinating introduction to the topic. The text is broken up into sections, each section dedicated to an instrument of the orchestra. There are a great number of musical examples which Forsyth uses to prove the points he makes. Although the age of the book fails to lend a modern perspective (I'd LOVE to see what the percussion section of the book would look like if it was written after Orff's Carmina Burana!), many fundamentals of orchestration are timeless. The string section is glorious, and is a wonderful introduction to the instruments for any non-string player. Overall, the text is invaluable to any student with moderate theory knowledge interested in the technical side of music.

Please note that this is a review of the 'General Books' edition of this work only.

Cecil Forsyth, (or 'FORKYTH' as this edition would have it), may indeed have written an eminently usable book, but this edition is anything but that. It is apparently a raw OCR copy of an earlier edition, including headings such as the following "ITiii, 3. MODEKN OUOKKSTIIAI, VALVK-HuuN" (at 63). While most of the text has not been quite as badly garbled, they layout (it is not visually apparent where one chapter or section begins or ends, what is a chapter heading vs example text, etc), makes it impossible to locate specific information and very difficult to read.

If you want this book, spend the extra money buying an edition upon which a modicum of editorial effort has been exercised.

This book is organized as a tour of the many instruments that comprise an orchestra, together with description about how each instrument sounds, and how it might be used. Its primary focus is the instruments, not their arrangement.

My interest was more the latter. I am an amateur, novice composer of short works, working to arrange and orchestrate my own music. I want to understand better when oboes are best used over strings, how strings sections "against" each other are sculpted, when interplay between brass instruments is most appealing, etc.

I respect this man, but his book is not for me.

This book is superb, very indepth. I bought it, however, thinking it was going to discuss topics such as instrumental combinations, balance of tone, and other concepts more typically associated with 'orchestration'. It turns out, it deals more with the various characteristics and capabilities of each instrument in the orchestra...EXCELLENTLY! Though it could've been titled 'Instrumentation', it is an essential, valuable book. This may not be the definitive 'orchestration' book your looking for, but buy it anyway - you'll be glad you did!