What things in common do classical and romantic orchestras have?

March 11, 8286 at 12:40 PM by Kieran C | Posted in Classical

Q: please help.

March 11, 8957 at 12:40 PM by Aragnoll

A: Basically the Romantic orchestra has a much wider range of instruments and pitches and it generally has many more players (a Classical orchestra would be around 40 players at its largest and a Romantic can be up to 90). After the Classical period, lower instruments such as the tuba, euphonium, bass-trombone and contra-bassoon were developed to give a lower level to the orchestra and instruments such as the piccolo were developed to give a higher level. Other instruments such as the double bass, trombone and clarinet, although already in use in the Classical period became more widely used. The Romantic orchestra was also used in a different way, for example, composers started to use more adventurous techniques such as flutter-tonguing on woodwind instruments and col legno on string instruments.

Basically, orchestration in the classical era consisted of:

Strings: 1st violins, 2nd violins, violas, cellos, double basses

Woodwinds: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons

Brass: 2 french horns, 2 trumpets Percussion: 2 timpani

Whereas romantic orchestras were of a much larger scale, with nearly double amounts of each instrument and a much larger brass and percussion section (ie, small scale percussion instruments such as triangles, glockenspiels and tambourines were introduced.)

2 Comments

  • puckrock2000 says:
    March 11, 8761 at 12:00 AM
    I'm not sure what you mean by "classical" and "romantic" orchestras, unless you are talking about orchestras during the Classical era (roughly 1750-1820) and Romantic era (roughly 1820-1910). The instrumentation would generally be the same, though in the romantic era, the number of players (especially in the string section) would be larger.
  • Mura says:
    March 11, 9243 at 12:00 AM
    Composers in the Romantic era used larger sections -- more players. The choices of form and harmony were also developed more broadly, and the thematic elements were less structured.

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