The Cambridge Guide to Orchestration

It often comes as a surprise to learn that otherwise fine musicians and performers may be novices when it comes to orchestration. This is when we select and combine the many various instrumental sections and parts (itself known as instrumentation) into the whole shape and character of the musical composition. All this of course is based on a good understanding of what the instruments can do – string and wind, brass and percussion, piano and the rest. The matter is made more complicated still from knowing the style and period of the composition itself, say a Haydn or Mozart symphony,...