Most reduced-orchestra editions of operas, mine included, try as much as possible to respect and maintain the original work’s tone color and instrumental allocations. I.e., a wind solo remains allocated to that instrument, brass passages remain in the brass (however much you have to rejigger things given the forces to hand); string passages remain in the strings, etc.
This isn’t too hard with much of the standard opera repertoire - and certainly those works considered prime candidates for reduced forces - which uses a fairly straightforward orchestral palette and reasonably sized forces.The operas of Richard Strauss however, and particularly Elektra, present a real challenge in this regard. Strauss's use of the orchestra is based on an inherently traditional conception: it's just that it's so much bigger and used so much more complexly.
A typical opera orchestra consists of two each of flutes, oboes, clarinets and bassoons; four horns, two to three trumpets, three trombones, a bass brass instrument (tuba or cimbasso); timpani and possibly some other percussion, a harp and around 26 strings. So a total of around fifty players. Up to the early nineteenth century the brass section would probably have been four players total and a harp would have been rare. By the mid nineteenth century it becomes more common to find the winds expanded to threes with doublings in each family, the harp is ubiquitous and the percussion section has evolved, taking the total orchestra up to around sixty. With Wagner's Ring orchestra as his template, Strauss blows the above standard out of the water by stipulating the following:
4 flutes (3rd and 4th also piccolos)
3 oboes (3rd also English Horn)
1 Heckelphone
1 Eb clarinet
4 Bb clarinets, 3rd and 4th also A clarinets
2 basset horns
1 bass clarinet
3 bassoons
1 contrabassoon
Total winds: 20
8 horns (5th and 7th also tenor Wagner tubas in Bb, 6th and 8th also bass Wagner tubas in F)
6 trumpets
1 bass trumpet
3 trombones
1 contrabass trombone
1 contrabass tuba
Total brass: 20
2 timpanists covering 8 drums
4 percussionists playing bass drum, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, snare drum, tam tam, 2 pairs of castagnettes, rute, glockenspiel
2 harps (the composer blithely requests that, if possible, these be doubled at the very end of the opera, beginning with Elektra’s dance. Regrettably I have yet to see this request fulfilled.)
Celesta (optional)
Violins 1, 2 and 3: 8 players each
Violas 1, 2 and 3: 6 players each (1st violas double as 4th violins)
Cellis 1 and 2: 6 players each
Basses 1 and 2: 4 players each
Total: 62
Total: 110
This affords Strauss a hitherto unprecedented panoply of colors, both soloistically and in combinations within individual instrumental families, instrumental sections and across those sections. And the complexity and subtetly with which he deploys it is astounding, particularly in a piece so monumental that fine shading might seem wasted, particularly with the ear principally focussed on the vocal parts. Yet solo strings tendril their way through already complex, heavy passages. Here and there a clutch of flutes or double reeds or brass will fleetingly shade a chord. Clarinets, basset horns and bassoons add a uniquely oleaginous dimension to harmonies already defined by other sections. Wagner tubas embody the ominous, massive atmosphere of the drama.
Then there’s the way Strauss uses his orchestra, expecting a level of individual and ensemble virtuosity that makes Elektra essentially a concerto for orchestra with voices added. The combination of myriad contrapuntal lines in passages both fast and slow with minute inner details results in the soaring, seething, hyper excitement that are a hallmark of his work. And the increase in size of his orchestras from work to work allows him to give many of those contrasting lines equal weight through doubling and tripling across sections while offering increased opportunitt for filigree and embellishment.
Some of those inner lines are the complex web of leitmotifs that are the architecture of Strauss’s scores, and in almost all cases are fundamental to the dramatic-symphonic structure of the composition, particularly in the operas. Meaning these need to be respected and retained.
Add to that the complexity of much of Elektra’s harmonic structure, Strauss’s farthest foray in this area, where there’s potentially the question of finding enough instruments to cover all the notes.
All of which is to say that the practical question for this project remains: with an orchestra 30 percent the size of the original, how much of Strauss’s ocean of inner detail do you attempt to keep, and what? How much of his original instrumental coloring - particular with regards to doubling across sections - do you attempt to respect? To what extent does that affect the choice of instrumentation for a reduced-forces version? If you omit some of that inner detail - if only because of the lack of instruments - is this landmark work inherently depleted, not just in terms of respecting the integrity of the fundental composition but in terms of a work whose effectiveness is generally assumed to be dependent on its orchestral component?
The interesting flip side of the question being: might not some of that inner filigree be more apprehensible in a version where it isn't buried under the enormous sonic mass of the 110-piece, brass heavy original?
Consideration of this issue inevitably affects the choice of instruments in my edition, particularly regarding the makeup of the string section, which I’ll be exploring in the upcoming posts.
