Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting music composed for another medium for an orchestra. Also called "instrumentation", orchestration is the assignment of different instruments to play the different parts of a musical work. For example, a work for solo piano could be adapted and orchestrated so that an orchestra could perform the piece, or a concert band piece could be orchestrated for a symphony orchestra.
The Symphony No. 1 in D major by Gustav Mahler was mainly composed between late 1887 and March 1888, though it incorporates music Mahler had composed for previous works. It was composed while Mahler was second conductor at the Leipzig Opera in Germany. Although in his letters Mahler almost always referred to the work as a symphony, the first two performances described it as a symphonic poem and as a tone poem in symphonic form, respectively. The work was premièred at the Vigadó Concert Hall in Budapest, Hungary, in 1889, but was not well-received. Mahler made some major revisions for the second performance, given at Hamburg, Germany, in October 1893; further alterations were made in the years prior to the first publication, in late 1898. Some modern performances and recordings give the work the title Titan, despite the fact that Mahler only used this label for the second and third performances, and never after the work had reached its definitive four-movement form in 1896.
The Siegfried Idyll, WWV 103, by Richard Wagner is a symphonic poem for chamber orchestra.
Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor, D. 759, commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony, is a musical composition that Schubert started in 1822 but left with only two movements—though he lived for another six years. A scherzo, nearly completed in piano score but with only two pages orchestrated, also survives.
The Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 105, is a single-movement work for orchestra written from 1914 to 1924 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
Charles-Louis-Eugène Koechlin, commonly known as Charles Koechlin, was a French composer, teacher and musicologist. Among his better known works is Les Heures persanes, a set of piano pieces based on the novel Vers Ispahan by Pierre Loti and The Seven Stars Symphony, a 7 movement symphony where each movement is themed around a different film star who were popular at the time of the piece's writing (1933).
The Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27, is a four-movement composition for orchestra written from October 1906 to April 1907 by the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff. The premiere was performed at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg on 26 January 1908, with the composer conducting. Its duration is approximately 60 minutes when performed uncut; cut performances can be as short as 35 minutes. The score is dedicated to Sergei Taneyev, a Russian composer, teacher, theorist, author, and pupil of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The piece remains one of the composer's most popular and best known compositions.
The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, is a symphony written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876. The premiere of this symphony, conducted by the composer's friend Felix Otto Dessoff, occurred on 4 November 1876, in Karlsruhe, then in the Grand Duchy of Baden. A typical performance lasts between 45 and 50 minutes.
The Symphony No. 100 in G major, Hoboken I/100, is the eighth of the twelve London symphonies written by Joseph Haydn and completed in 1793 or 1794. It is popularly known as the Military Symphony.
An Alpine Symphony, Op. 64, is a tone poem for large orchestra written by German composer Richard Strauss in 1915. It is one of Strauss's largest non-operatic works; the score calls for about 125 players and a typical performance usually lasts around 50 minutes. The program of An Alpine Symphony depicts the experiences of eleven hours spent climbing an Alpine mountain.
The Symphony No. 3 in C major, Op. 52, is a three-movement work for orchestra written from 1904 to 1907 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius.
Alexander Scriabin's Symphony No. 3 in C minor, entitled Le Divin Poème, was written between 1902 and 1904 and published in 1905. It was premiered in Paris on 29 May of that year.
The Symphony No. 62 in D major, Hoboken I/62, is a symphony written by Joseph Haydn for the orchestra at Esterháza in 1780 or 1781, a good length of time after the writing of Symphony No. 61.
Kossuth, Sz. 21, BB. 31, DD. 75a is a symphonic poem composed by Béla Bartók inspired by the Hungarian politician Lajos Kossuth.
Symphony No. 2, Op. 19 is a three-movement work for orchestra by the American composer Samuel Barber. The 25-minute work was originally written in 1944. The work underwent many revisions and was finally published in 1950. The original manuscript was withdrawn by Barber in 1964. He ordered that G. Schirmer destroy the original manuscript and all scores in their library. The work remained unpublished for many years until 1984 when a set of parts turned up in a warehouse in England. Renewed interest in Barber's work led to a 1990 reprint of the 1950 edition.
Graham Whettam was an English post-romantic composer.
The Symphony in E minor is the first symphony written by the American composer Florence Price. The work was completed in 1932 and was first performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the conductor Frederick Stock in June 1933. The piece was Price's first full-scale orchestral composition and was the first symphony by a Black woman to be performed by a major American orchestra.
The Symphony No. 3 in C minor is a symphony for orchestra composed by Florence Price in 1938. The work was commissioned by the Works Progress Administration's Federal Music Project during the height of the Great Depression. It was first performed at the Detroit Institute of Arts on November 6, 1940, by the Detroit Civic Orchestra under the conductor Valter Poole. The composition is Price's third symphony, following her Symphony in E minor—the first symphony by a black woman to be performed by a major American orchestra—and her lost Symphony No. 2.
The bassoon repertoire consists of pieces of music composed for bassoon as a principal instrument that may be performed with or without other instruments. Below is a non-exhaustive list of major works for the bassoon.
