Abstract
An Orchestra, which can be termed as either a corporate musical instrument or a corporation of musicians who use instruments, has history dating before the 19th century; that is before the year 1800. The Romantic Symphony Orchestra, which is a specialized category of Orchestra, derives from the gradual revolution of orchestra that rendered its birth. Retrieved from the general know how of what an Orchestra entails, it can be simply put that an Orchestra is either a sounding body or a musical institution, or both. The romantic notion of art, which lead to the development of romantic symphony orchestra, differed from that of the Classical era. Romantic artists like Hector Berlioz and Ludwig Van Beethoven performed their artistic creations while sharing with the audience their individual, exalted instinctive feelings. They communicated the self with great passion in that the audience shared in their struggles and victories. Through this, their creations served the duty of “upbringing of humanity.” In their creations, they used romantics to exalt the feelings of despair, nature, frenzy and love, which had the impact of winning the admiration and respect among their audience. The development in orchestra, which entailed both instrumental and performance, gradually led to the creation or modification of instruments in that there was a revolutionary of not only the musical industry, but also the whole entertainment industry. There were expectations of how the audiences were to behave during concerts. Audience of romantic symphony orchestra respectfully sat in silence in front of the artists; this was the complete opposite during the classical era where the concerts were loud and disorderly. Technological improvements spearheaded the creation of instruments like harps, cornets, early tubas, contrabassoons, trombones and piccolos that were added to the orchestra.
Introduction
The use of the term Orchestra is arguably said to have begun in the seventeenth century because certain musicologists assert that in the Renaissance period, the churches used the term and practiced what it entails. Evidence in support of this is the presence of instrumental bands during the period like the St. Mark’s that performed their instrumentals in churches (Hansen, Whitehouse & Silverman, 2014). Further research coins that during the Renaissance period, the notion of instrumental consorts was established. The instrumental consorts gave rise to independent instrumental ensembles. This was realized through the development of instruments with similar category, which covered more or less the four voice variations of bass, tenor, alto and soprano. During the Baroque period, two issues that determined the basis of a revolution in the music industry came to existence. One of the issues concerned the product (musical instrument) and the other was based on the mechanism of production (Knight, 2006). They had the positive effect of revolutionizing both the instrumental performers and the status of the instrumental music. In this paper, the following will be examined: The changes in instrumental construction, how the changes altered the sound of the Romantic Symphony Orchestra, composers that utilized the changes, examples of the improved instruments and works that utilized the new instruments.
An examination of the changes in instrumental construction