INSTRUMENTATION, or ORCHESTRATION. The art of arranging the parts of an orchestral composition for the various instruments. Al though front the beginning of the sixteenth cen tury emnposers wrote for varions combinations of instruments, instrumentation has become a real art only quite recently. The Gabrielis, for instance, employed violins in their instrumental works, but had no idea of the true character of this instrument. They used it only, like the trombones, for sustained notes. Even the instru mentation of Bach and liandel is very primitive. Gluck seems to have been the first to use the various instruments with a conscious purpose and a knowledge of their peculiar character. Ilaydn and _Mozart made scarcely any advance in instrumentation over Wiwi:. In the works of Beethoven we find for the first time each instru ment speaking its own language, and with him the art of instrumentation may be said to begin. Weber accomplished for the opera orchestra what Beethoven hail done for the symphony orehestra. In the works of \Vaguer and Berlioz instrumenta tion reached its culmination. Just as there is a special style of writing for the pianoforte (Kla viersatz) so there is also one for the orchestra (Orchestersatz). It is not sufficient for a Nan
poser to know thoroughly the compass and pe culiarities of each instrument. Effective instru mentation requires also the proper distribution of the separate tones of a chord among the vari ons instruments. Thus, if a composer should write the C major chord for trombones in suc cessive thirds. r, e, 9, the effect would he a con fused mass of sound; whereas the proper effect would he obtained by writing c. ,i, e'. The science of instrumentation teaches the pupil the com pass and peeuliarities of the different instru ments, as well as their combinations. But talent for instrumentation and orchestral writing is in dependent of purely creative talent. although as n rule the two are combined. Chopin, however, is an example of a great composer who was al most destitute of any talent for instrumentation; whereas Wagner. the consummate master of orchestral writing, wrote a very amateurish pianoforte style. The best works on instrumen tation are those of Marx, Lobe, Prout, and espe cially Berlioz and Gevacrt. See ORCHESTRA;