Orchestral Performance Practices in the Nineteenth Century: Size, Proportions, and Seating (Studies in Musicology) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)While I don't know if you can get a copy of this book very easily (mine is from UMI Research Press but has the SAME ISBN number as this edition), I do know it is a most interesting text. Daniel Koury shows us how orchestras have been deployed from the 18th through the 19th centuries and on to today as far as today's symphony orchestras maintain 19th century traditions. He organizes the book in five parts each with several chapters:
Part 1) Eighteenth-Century Precedents: From Baroque to Classic
Part 2) The Emerging Conductor and His Changing Forces
Part 3) Size, Numbers, and Proportions in the Nineteenth-Century Orchestra
Part 4) Seating in the Nineteenth Century
Part 5) Nineteenth Century Music and Current Performance Practices
The author provides many seating diagrams that show us many things, among them that for a long time the seating was about getting the forces placed in a way that would fit within in an existing space such as a Church. We still face that today when performing something like the St. Matthew Passion in a space not designed to accommodate such large forces (even in a size appropriate to Bach's time).
It is fascinating to see the concert master and conductor switch roles over time and how the conductor became a rather powerful role in music performance as the orchestra expanded in size and the music more, well, complex.
A most interesting book for anyone interested in performance practices, and the evolution of orchestras over the past couple of centuries.

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" . . . supported by a wealth of information --- often novel and fascinating --- which the author has collected from a great variety of sources. Admirable industry, sound judgement, and excellent style have produced a book that ought to be in the hands of every conductor."--- Max Rudolf Journal of the Conductors' Guild ". . . an essential book for anyone trying to give responsible performances of 19th-century music." --- Early Music News

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