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 Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 was the only concerto for violin composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Composed in 1878, it is one of the best-known violin concertos.
Henryk Wieniawski was a Polish virtuoso violinist, composer and pedagogue, who is regarded amongst the most distinguished violinists in history. His younger brother Józef Wieniawski and nephew Adam Tadeusz Wieniawski were also accomplished musicians, as was his daughter Régine, who became a naturalised British subject upon marrying into the peerage and wrote music under the name Poldowski.
The Violin Concerto by William Walton was written in 1938–39 and dedicated to Jascha Heifetz, who commissioned the work and performed it at its premiere on 7 December 1939 with the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Artur Rodziński. The British premiere, delayed by the Second World War, was given on 1 November 1941, with Henry Holst as soloist and the composer conducting. Walton later reorchestrated the concerto; the revised version was premiered in 1944. The work has been frequently recorded and has established itself as one of the composer's most durable compositions.
The Piano Concerto No. 21 in C major, K. 467, was completed on 9 March 1785 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, four weeks after the completion of the previous D minor concerto, K. 466.
Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73, was composed by Johannes Brahms in the summer of 1877, during a visit to Pörtschach am Wörthersee, a town in the Austrian province of Carinthia. Its composition was brief in comparison with the 21 years it took Brahms to complete his First Symphony.
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.
Violin Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp minor, Op. 14, by Polish violin virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski was first performed on October 27, 1853 in Leipzig. The score is dedicated to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia.
Violin Concerto No. 2 in D minor, Op. 22, by the Polish violin virtuoso, Henryk Wieniawski, may have been started in 1856, but the first performance did not take place until November 27, 1862, when he played it in St. Petersburg with Anton Rubinstein conducting. It was published in 1879, inscribed to his dear friend Pablo de Sarasate.
Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, is a tone poem by Richard Strauss. The work was completed in 1898. It was his eighth work in the genre, and exceeded any of its predecessors in its orchestral demands. Generally agreed to be autobiographical in nature despite contradictory statements on the matter by the composer, the work contains more than thirty quotations from Strauss's earlier works, including Also sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel, Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Death and Transfiguration.
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.
Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48, was composed in 1880. It was first performed October 30, 1881 in St. Petersburg at a Russian Musical Society concert conducted by Eduard Nápravník.
The Symphony No. 80 in D minor, Hoboken 1/80, is a symphony composed by Joseph Haydn in 1784 as part of a trio of symphonies that also included symphonies 79 and 81. This symphony, along with the one that follows it, and the one that precedes it, were not written for Prince Nikolaus, but for a Lenten concert performed in Vienna in March 1785. It is one of the relatively few later symphonies by Haydn to begin in the minor mode. Symphony No. 80 is highly structured with both outer movements in sonata form. There is a common modulation pattern seen in all four movements.
Zigeunerweisen, Op. 20, is a musical composition for violin and orchestra written in 1878 by the Spanish composer Pablo de Sarasate. It was premiered the same year in Leipzig, Germany. Like his contemporaries, Sarasate misidentified Hungarian folk music with the "gypsy music" of the Romani people, and the themes in the piece are not of Romani origin, but were all actually adapted from Hungarian music pieces: for instance, the third section borrows a melody by Hungarian composer Elemér Szentirmay (1836–1908), and the last section uses a theme from Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13, in the rhythm of the csárdás.
Johannes Brahms's Violin Sonata No. 3 in D minor, Op. 108 is the last of his violin sonatas, composed between 1886 and 1888. Unlike the two previous violin sonatas, it is in four movements. The sonata is dedicated to Brahms' friend and colleague Hans von Bülow and was premiered in Budapest in 1888, with Jenő Hubay on violin and the composer at the piano.
Carl Maria von Weber wrote his Clarinet Concerto No. 1 in F minor, Op. 73 for the clarinettist Heinrich Bärmann in 1811. The piece is highly regarded in the instrument's repertoire. It is written for clarinet in B♭. The work consists of three movements in the form of fast, slow, fast. It was premiered in Munich on 13 June 1811, with Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria in attendance.
Rustic Wedding Symphony, Op. 26 is a symphony in E-flat major by Karl Goldmark, written in 1875, a year before his renowned Violin Concerto No. 1. The symphony was premiered in Vienna on 5 March 1876, conducted by Hans Richter. Johannes Brahms, who was a frequent walking companion of Goldmark's, and whose own Symphony No. 1 was not premiered until November 1876, told him "That is the best thing you have done; clear-cut and faultless, it sprang into being a finished thing, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter". Its first American performance was at a New York Philharmonic Society concert, conducted by Theodore Thomas on 13 January 1877.
The Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60, completed by Johannes Brahms in 1875, is scored for piano, violin, viola and cello. It is sometimes called the Werther Quartet after Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. The premiere took place in Vienna on November 18, 1875, to an anxious public. Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima were in attendance.
Violin Concerto No. 4 in D minor, MS 60, is a concerto composed by Niccolò Paganini in the fall of 1829.
The Concerto for Piano, Violin, and Strings in D minor, MWV O4, also known as the Double Concerto in D minor, was written in 1823 by Felix Mendelssohn when he was 14 years old. This piece is Mendelssohn's fourth work for a solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment, preceded by a Largo and Allegro in D minor for Piano and Strings MWV O1, the Piano Concerto in A Minor MWV O2, and the Violin Concerto in D minor MWV O3. Mendelssohn composed the work to be performed for a private concert on May 25, 1823 at the Mendelssohn home in Berlin with his violin teacher and friend, Eduard Rietz. Following this private performance, Mendelssohn revised the scoring, adding winds and timpani and is possibly the first work in which Mendelssohn used winds and timpani in a large work. A public performance was given on July 3, 1823 at the Berlin Schauspielhaus. Like the A minor piano concerto (1822), it remained unpublished during Mendelssohn's lifetime and it wasn't until 1999 when a critical edition of the piece was available.
