50 Fun Facts About Orchestra

Which instrument traditionally plays the note to which the whole orchestra tunes?

Its pitch is stable and its penetrating tone carries, and the custom is about 300 years old.

To what frequency is the tuning A set under the international standard?

Highland pipe bands play well above it, around 470 to 480 Hz, closer to a B-flat.

How many main sections does a typical symphony orchestra have?

The strings are the fourth and by far the largest group.

The word 'orchestra' comes from the Greek name for what?

'Philharmonic' is Greek too, meaning 'loving harmony'.

What is the leader of the first violins, who sits to the conductor's left, called in the United States?

In the UK the same player is simply called the leader.

A chamber orchestra is generally no bigger than about how many musicians?

Wagner and Mahler, by contrast, wrote for orchestras of up to 120 players.

Which composer's symphony finale with a bass double-reed, trombones, chorus and soloists first stretched the orchestra?

His Ninth also asked for a second pair of horns, and four horns became standard afterwards.

Which composer is claimed to be the first to conduct with a wooden baton?

Boulez, Stokowski and Kurt Masur were among the famous conductors who did without one.

Which Baroque composer died after striking his own toe with the heavy staff he used to beat time?

He was conducting a Te Deum in 1687 to celebrate Louis XIV's recovery from illness.

In the Baroque era, orchestras were often led not by a conductor but by whom?

Some early-music ensembles still work that way today.

Which 18th-century court orchestra did Charles Burney praise as 'an army of generals'?

Johann Stamitz is regarded as the school's founder.

Which is the only modern bowed string instrument in the orchestra tuned in fourths rather than fifths?

Its open strings, E-A-D-G, are the same as a bass guitar's.

Which orchestral instrument's music is written mainly in the alto clef?

It is tuned a fifth below the violin, to C, G, D and A.

The word 'cello' is short for violoncello, which in Italian means what?

Like the double bass it rests on an endpin, a spike that sits on the floor.

How many pedals does a concert harp have?

Sébastien Erard patented the double-action pedal system in 1811, and harpists were among the first women hired by professional orchestras.

The cor anglais is pitched a perfect fifth below which instrument?

It is neither English nor a horn, and oboists usually double on it.

The contrabassoon sounds how far below the ordinary bassoon?

A Tulsa Symphony player has designed a 'subcontrabassoon' a full octave lower still.

The Wagner tuba, despite its name, is usually played by members of which section?

Wagner commissioned it for the Ring cycle to bridge the gap between horns and trombones.

Which piston-and-rotary invention of 1815 transformed the brass section?

Berlioz then wrote the first systematic treatise on orchestration.

Timpani bowls are traditionally made of which metal?

Modern pedal timpani can be retuned mid-piece with the foot.

The celesta, heard in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, was invented in 1886 by whom?

Though technically percussion, in the orchestra it is treated as a keyboard instrument.

In Peter and the Wolf, which instrument represents the wolf?

Prokofiev wrote it in 1936 for the Central Children's Theatre in Moscow.

In Peter and the Wolf, which instrument plays the duck?

The bird is the flute, the cat the clarinet and the grandfather the bassoon.

Britten's The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra is built on a theme by which composer?

The theme is a rondeau from Purcell's Abdelazer suite, and the piece was written for an educational film.

In Britten's Young Person's Guide, which small instrument starts the closing fugue?

The theme is first played by the full orchestra, then by woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion in turn.

How many times is the snare-drum rhythm repeated in Ravel's Boléro?

Ravel told a friend he wanted to repeat one theme without development while gradually swelling the orchestra.

Which dancer commissioned Boléro in 1928?

She had originally asked for an orchestration of Albéniz piano pieces.

Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is best known for its climactic use of what?

Indoors the cannons are often replaced by a bass drum, tam-tam or a mallet on staging.

How long did Tchaikovsky take to write the 1812 Overture?

It was premiered under a tent beside the unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.

In Haydn's Farewell Symphony, what do the players do one by one during the final adagio?

It was a hint to Prince Esterházy that the musicians wanted to go home to their wives; the court left the next day.

Which Mahler symphony is nicknamed the 'Symphony of a Thousand'?

He conducted its 1910 Munich premiere himself, the last of his works premiered in his lifetime.

Which orchestra did not admit women as permanent members until 1997?

The first, harpist Anna Lelkes, was admitted on the eve of a US tour facing protests.

The members of Austria's most famous Musikverein-based ensemble are drawn from where?

The orchestra has given a New Year's Day concert of Strauss family music every year since 1941.

How long is the wait for a weekend subscription at the Musikverein, according to the resident orchestra?

The orchestra was founded in 1842 by a group that met at an inn called Zum Amor.

Which 34-year Berlin Philharmonic conductor is estimated to have sold 200 million records?

His 1981 recording of Strauss's An Alpine Symphony was the first work ever pressed on compact disc.

Which orchestra is often called the world's oldest civic symphony orchestra, tracing its roots to 1743?

It is named for the Gewandhaus, the 'garment house' of the city's textile merchants.

Which orchestra gave the world premiere of Dvořák's New World Symphony?

Founded in 1842, it is the oldest of America's 'Big Five' orchestras.

Which UK ensemble, founded 1904, claims to be the world's most recorded and played on Star Wars?

The London Symphony Orchestra was founded by players who walked out of Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra over an exclusivity rule.

Leonard Bernstein became famous overnight in 1943 by stepping in for which ailing conductor?

The Carnegie Hall concert was broadcast live nationwide.

On Christmas Day 1989 Bernstein conducted the Ninth Symphony in Germany's capital to mark what?

He died of a heart attack less than a year later.

Which opera did young cellist Toscanini conduct from memory in Brazil in 1886, launching his conducting career?

He later became the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

Who in 2013 became the first woman to conduct the Last Night of the Proms?

She was also the first conductor ever awarded a MacArthur 'genius grant'.

Gustavo Dudamel is a product of El Sistema, the youth-orchestra programme of which country?

José Antonio Abreu started it with 11 students; by 2015 it claimed 700,000 young musicians.

How many students did José Antonio Abreu have when he founded El Sistema in 1975?

Dudamel joined the programme in 1986 as a violin pupil.

Corelli's Rome orchestra could swell to how many players for special occasions?

By contrast Bach's ensemble at Koethen numbered at most 18 players.

Wagner's score for Das Rheingold calls for how many harps?

His essay On Conducting set the style for orchestral performance for the next eighty years.

Historically, players of which instrument were the first women hired by professional orchestras?

Fittingly, the Vienna Philharmonic's first permanent woman member in 1997, Anna Lelkes, was a harpist.

What was Persimfans, formed in the Soviet Union in 1922?

Its members were led by a committee, modelled on the ideal Marxist state; Stalin cut its funding after ten years.

Which New York chamber ensemble is a well-known modern example of playing without a conductor?

Decisions tend to defer to the concertmaster and principal players.

Stockhausen's Gruppen, for three orchestras placed around the audience, premiered in which city in 1958?

Stockhausen, Bruno Maderna and Pierre Boulez shared the conducting.