Early nineteenth-century orchestration treatises: with a concentration on Augustin Sundelin's Die Instrumentierung fur das Orchester and Ferdinand Gassner's Partiturkenntniss
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Abstract
Because of the late eighteenth century's developments in the art of orchestration, many music teachers became increasingly concerned with how to instruct their students in this subject. They turned to the instrumental tutors which were quite popular at the turn of the century, and found nothing that discussed timbre or how to combine instruments effectively. In response to a plea for written instruction about orchestration itself, several books that addressed that topic began to appear at the end of the eighteenth century. Within the first four decades of the nineteenth century several orchestration treatises were available. The works of Sundelin, GaBner, Kastner, Berlioz and others supplied information about orchestration as well as common practices of the time.
Sundlelin's Die Instrumentierung fur Militar Musik (1828) was perhaps the first to discuss the newly invented valve instruments, and it is likely that Die lnstrumentierung fur das Orchester (1828) was the first treatise to comment on instrumental combinations. These works represented the transition between instrumental tutors and orchestration books as we know them today. [TRUNCATED]
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Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University
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