Scribd
Upload
2K views1 page

Textures and Timbre S

This book provides an in-depth overview of instrumental textures and timbres for orchestration. Written by renowned composer and orchestrator Henry Brant, it examines how to effectively combine instruments based on their sonic qualities. Brant breaks instruments into groups and discusses aspects like range, thickness, vibrato, and balance. He covers topics that are not addressed elsewhere, such as how pipe organ or harpsichord affect woodwinds. While examples cannot be heard without a supplemental audio recording, the book remains valuable for its detailed guidance on orchestral instrumentation.

Uploaded by

Ive Barraco
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
2K views1 page

Textures and Timbre S

This book provides an in-depth overview of instrumental textures and timbres for orchestration. Written by renowned composer and orchestrator Henry Brant, it examines how to effectively combine instruments based on their sonic qualities. Brant breaks instruments into groups and discusses aspects like range, thickness, vibrato, and balance. He covers topics that are not addressed elsewhere, such as how pipe organ or harpsichord affect woodwinds. While examples cannot be heard without a supplemental audio recording, the book remains valuable for its detailed guidance on orchestral instrumentation.

Uploaded by

Ive Barraco
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

TEXTURES AND TIMBRES: An Orchestrator’s Handbook by Henry Brant.

New York,
Carl Fischer LLC, 2009. www.carlfischer.com

This is a fascinating and unusual book, but one expects no less from Henry Brant,
who re-defined the word ‘eclectic.’ Brant had extensive experience composing concert
music and jazz, and orchestrated many thousands of pages for radio and motion pictures.
In 1952, influenced by Charles Ives (whose “Concord” Sonata for piano he would set and
adapt for large orchestra, an amazing achievement), he began writing antiphonal music
for widely separated ensembles, sometimes requiring more than one conductor. Few
composers had the background that he did with regard to what instruments could do, and
how they could best be combined. This book is a result of over forty years of thinking
and writing, and was completed shortly before Brant’s death.
In a way, it is difficult to review this book because of the way the subject is
handled. This is certainly not a book for beginners, as it requires extensive study of
instrumentation, i.e. how the instruments work. And yet this is a book that should be
studied early in an orchestrator’s path, as Brant clarifies how instruments are played and
how they can be combined and balanced most effectively based on their textures and tone
qualities. As an example, he breaks down woodwinds into four wind groups based on the
overall sound the composer might wish. Wind group I is comprised of instruments whose
range and tone-qualities most closely resemble a flute; Wind Group II most closely
resembling an oboe, III an open horn, IV a trumpet. He deals with ‘thinness’ and
thickness of sound with regard to each instrument at a given octave, multiple timbre
mixtures within each group and their combinations with other instrumental groups in the
orchestra (i.e. Group three against and in combination with strings). Brant even shows
that such issues as what if any vibrato is used by an instrument or section can make major
differences in the sound of the ensemble.
If you write for instruments, what makes the book fun iare the details you are not
likely to encounter anywhere else. There are special sections on how, let’s say, the pipe
organ affects the sounds of the different woodwind groups. Brant advises us on the type
of harpsichord to use with a symphony orchestra. He covers every conceivable brass
mute in use today, and how many orchestration books can you name that include gamelan
instruments, thundersheets and crotales in a discussion of percussion instruments?
Inevitably, the key problem is that the many fantastic musical examples cannot be
heard by the reader because there is no CD of recorded examples included with the text.
This would seem to be key to understanding the large educational canvas Brant has
presented, and yet I can understand that to create such a CD would be extremely
expensive. Yet even without the ability to hear this music except in your mind’s ear, this
is still a book that belongs on any composer’s and/or orchestrator’s shelf.

You might also like