Traite D Instrumentation Of Percussion Instruments In The Early Romantic Period

The percussion family that is known in today’s Western Academia music is fundamentally not very different from the shape it looked in the Romantic era. The Romantic era lead to not only the percussion section expanding, but the brass section as well. Orchestra’s in the Early Romantic period (ca. 1830) grew from roughly forty performers to as many as ninety performers toward the beginning of the 20th century. The most growth was the addition of wind instruments with extended ranges, such as piccolo, English horn, bass clarinet, etc.; however, various brass instruments, such as horns and trumpets, were utilized in greater number due to the invention of valves. These valves gave the brass section the ability to reach all chromatic notes throughout

The importance of this treatise was the fact that it was the first truly academic discussion concerning the employment of percussion by a major composer. In the percussion section of this treatise a wide range of topics are discussed, such as timpani ranges , the lack of a third drum in most orchestras, timpani implement, etc. Consequently, Berlioz’s treatise completely changed the viewpoint of percussion from being “exotic” toy like instruments to being full-fledged academic, artistic instruments. The treatise also emphasized the nuances of playing timpani in the vast dynamic range explored by Romantic composers. Extreme experimentation by composers into the zenith of musical expression and color created the inventions of extreme dynamics. These extreme dynamics, such as the ffff in Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture”, created demand for expanded utilization of impact percussion instruments, such as tam-tams, gongs, chimes, etc. Hence, the definition of percussion vastly, and broadly expanded to encompass essentially any resonant body you strike with an implement. Thus, percussion instruments began to take a raw “junk” form, such as the anvils, metal pipes, glass bottles, metal plates, brake drums, etc. The junk percussion instruments at their core are an antipode of traditional Western Academic music. This is especially in the works of Varese, in which he employed sound masses that influenced the musical