A short history of the orchestra

In 1607 Monteverdi wrote the instruments he wanted into the score of his opera L’Orfeo, an early step toward the orchestra we know.

A word that started as a dance floor

Why is a band of violinists and trumpeters named after a piece of floor? In an ancient Greek theatre the orchestra was the round or half-round space in front of the stage where the chorus sang and danced. The word comes from the Greek verb orkheisthai, “to dance”. In Roman theatres the same space held seats for important guests. English dictionaries record the meaning “a group of musicians” by about 1720, because the players sat in that space in front of the stage.

An orchestra today is a large group that mixes instruments from different families. There are four main sections: strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion. A full symphony orchestra uses about 70 to more than 100 players, depending on the piece and the hall. A chamber orchestra is smaller, usually no more than about 50 players. The model above has 68: 45 in the string section including one harp, 8 woodwinds, 11 brass and 4 percussion players.

From court bands to written instruments

Around 1600 groups of players used whatever instruments were at hand, and a composer often wrote parts that could be played on almost anything. Claudio Monteverdi changed that habit. For his opera L’Orfeo, first staged in Mantua in 1607, he specified in the score which instruments should play. The result already looked like an orchestra: instruments arranged in groups, many bowed strings and a wide variety of colours.

At the French court, a string band called the Vingt-quatre Violons du Roi, the King’s Twenty-Four Violins, existed from 1626 to 1761. Its five parts were 6 violins, three groups of 4 violas and 6 bass violins. At Versailles this band was combined with the wind players of the royal stables when needed, and under Jean-Baptiste Lully the mix played in the opera pit. Many historians see that combination as an early true orchestra. In Rome, Arcangelo Corelli led orchestras of 35 to 80 players, enlarged to 150 for special occasions.

Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven: the standard pairs

In the Classical period the orchestra of Haydn and Mozart was still fairly small. The standard set of winds in pairs is usually credited to Beethoven: two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns and two trumpets, with timpani and strings. In the finale of his Fifth Symphony, finished in 1808, he added three trombones, a piccolo and a contrabassoon, and the Eastman School of Music notes that this was the first time these instruments had been used together in a symphony. His Ninth Symphony of 1824 went further, adding a second pair of horns, untuned percussion, a chorus and solo singers.

New machines, bigger orchestras

Instrument makers then changed what composers could ask for. Heinrich Stölzel and Friedrich Blühmel developed valves for brass instruments in 1815, so horns and trumpets could play every note of the scale. Theobald Boehm rebuilt the flute, and his metal flute with a cylindrical tube appeared in 1847. Hector Berlioz wrote a famous treatise on orchestration in the 1840s, and his Symphonie fantastique of 1830 already used a large and colourful orchestra. By the end of the century Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler wrote for orchestras of up to about 120 players.