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Yesterday evening I went to a concert by the Vienna Tonkunstler Orchestra. I was very interested to see a brass seating arrangement I have not seen in an orchestra before.

The horns instead of being on the far side from the tuba, were placed to the left of the tuba, so looking from the conductor right to left were horns, tuba, trombones, trumpets.

I thought what a good layout. So often the tuba is acting as a bass horn in the orchestra that from a tubist perspective much better to have horns and trombones either side!

Jonathan "who also enjoyed the 'German sound' of the orchestra"

Where were the string basses? In Charlotte,we have changed seating so that the basses are on stage right , wedged between 1st violins and cellos,2nd violins are stage left. I'm behind the violas and trumpets.It feels like a concerto every night, no other bass sound in my vicinity.Dave Mills

DavidJMills wrote:Where were the string basses?

The basses were in their normal position to the far right of the conductor, obviously now further from the tuba because the horns are in between.

The string and woodwind layout seemed quite conventional - just the brass different.

Why must symphony orchestras dissociate the percussion section so far from the double basses and low brass? Every orchestra I have heard in person, from the local group in the local hall to famous European orchestras in Royal Albert Hall, London and elsewhere, do that, and inevitably somewhere along the line the beat phases almost completely out of time.

The above brass arrangement is a start, but why not go further and really consolidate the lower sections & percussion?

Seems like seating could vary with the piece, if there's time. What Jonathan describes would be particularly good for Sibelius 1 or 2, where the tuba spends a lot of time fortifying the horns when not joining the trombones.

jeopardymaster wrote:Seems like seating could vary with the piece, if there's time. What Jonathan describes would be particularly good for Sibelius 1 or 2, where the tuba spends a lot of time fortifying the horns when not joining the trombones.

And guess what? - Sibelius 2 was what they were playing

Bob1062 wrote:All I care about is that I don't don't DON'T sit in front of the trumpets! Especially when they be up on piccolo!

My old group had the trumpets either next to the low brass (l-r= trumpets, trombones 1 2 3, tuba) or them sitting in front of us most of the time. But occasionally WE were in front of them. I was proud of them playing like men and all, but damn my ears hurt!

That, my friend, is what earplugs are for -- once your hearing's damaged, it doesn't recover (ask Pete Townshend ).

Kevin Hendrick wrote: That, my friend, is what earplugs are for -- once your hearing's damaged, it doesn't recover (ask Pete Townshend ).

Assuming one did so, would he be able to hear the question?

TubaRay wrote:

Kevin Hendrick wrote: That, my friend, is what earplugs are for -- once your hearing's damaged, it doesn't recover (ask Pete Townshend ).

Assuming one did so, would he be able to hear the question?

There is that ...

On request I put together a new seating for the concert band I'm in, at the beginning of the season. I put all the low parts together; tubas, trombones, bass clarinet, bari sax, euphs, bass sax (yeah we have a bass sax!) I put the high woodwinds all together, and the midrange all together. The trumpets were in a circle in the very front, looking at the conductor. This was done partly because NO ONE wanted to sit in front of the trumpets!

The conductor, who was the one requesting the seating arrangement, went all of ten minutes before he moved people pretty much back where they had been; it wasn't because it sounded bad, it was because he wasn't used to seeing them there, and he didn't want to make an adjustment in himself. We went back to the disjointed sound-fighting-sound we had before (no surprise there). He did not want the trumpets in front of him, either! He moved them to the back row, next to the horns, behind the saxophones. The bass sax went back with the other saxes, and now she complains she can't hear the tubas and other low parts. Etc.

Then for the concert, he went and set up the horns in the middle of the band, in front of the trombones. We promply moved ourselves back in front of the wall so we could be heard. Why is it that band directors move the horns forward when they can't hear them? Are they unable to see that the bells point backwards? A backwards pointing bell needs a reflecting surface; the farther you are from that surface the more time lag between when you play and they hear it, and the more the sound gets lost in the muffle.

People just don't want to change anything even though they say they do; they won't even give something new a chance before they run from it.

M "no, really, I'm not disgruntled" A

this is interesting, I first noticed it when I saw the London Symphony orchestra with Gergiev playing Prokoffiev 6 and Shostakovich 5 when the tuba player sat with the horns rather than the trombones, it made for a fascinating sight and sound. What fantastically versatile instruments we play

Also works great for Bruckner. 7,8, and 9. Especially works for anything "Ring Cycle" related.

Heh - in performances of the late Bruckner symphonies sometimes the horns and Wagner tubas together outnumber the audience.

Which reminds me of a semi-suitable joke - what's the the difference between a bull and an orchestra?

One has the horns in front and the a**hole in back.

I remember a Proms concert of Bruckner 7 at the Royal Albert Hall (London) with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in the early 1990's.

For that he used two tubas (both were Besson EEb), one sat in the regular position with the trombones and a second over the opposite side with the Wagner Tubas. Each played with their respective group and both in the big tuttis.

I was struck by this possibility for re-arranging seating configurations quite a while ago when the Philadelphia Orchestra performed the 2nd Prokofiev Violin Concerto. Abe Torchinsky (that was QUITE a while ago) was over by the horns and second violins -- quite a way from his usual spot by the bones and bassi. It seems that since ours is definitely a performative art that, to optimize its potential, depending on the piece performed and what needs to blend with -- or contrast with -- something else, that the seating (or placement) of the sounds could be arranged appropriately. I realize it's more setup work on the stage, but orchestrating is not just something that the composer does, but it's a continuously cooperative function between the written piece, the hall that it's going to be performed in, the players performing it, and the rest of the bouquet that goes into the final brew.

After all, one of the Canadian Brass's favorite tricks has been to move around the stage -- or the theater (as in a Gabrieli tune they may do) -- to get it to sound closest to original intent. Or OTHER intent ...

But arranging and orchestrating are not SOMETHING done on a sheet of paper by someone long ago and far away, but it's all part of how the thing can best sound today, given the prospectively widely varying circumstances under which it could likely be performed. Don't mean to seem like a master of the obvious, but we do also seem to overlook that often enough to make our art as exciting as it could be.