Large orchestra with hidden textures

[kongming819]

You can find them all over the more recent orchestral works, perhaps starting with Richard Wagner (someone check the veracity of that please!) to now with some film composers such as John Williams (that Prokofiev-Stravinsky-[Ravel?] mixer) and Howard Shore.
There are those notes that are played by instruments, but they aren't heard, but if you remove them, you might hear something missing. It's as if it were subconscious or a sort of subliminal music. Such notes include large chords that are doubled by other instruments, runs, counterpoint, trills, some percussion (like the guero and crotales in the Rite of Spring), etc.

Does anybody have anymore ideas on this topic?

[matthew]

Welcome to the world of the great master orchestrators!
I think you are being a bit harsh with the list of composers you give, i don't know, but i would think you would find much of the stuff you descrided in late beethoven and early to mid romantic composers, though undoubtedly some of the best composers for these sorts of things were ravel and debusy. Listen to the opening of Ravel's second suite from daphnis and chloe (avalible at http://www.peabody.jhu.edu/584 about half way down), total magic, there's an awful lot going on and you can hear a lot, but i can guarantee that there is also a lot most people wouldn't hear and that's where the magic is.

These techniques are used a lot in film music whose role is almost always to support what's going on on screen, so there's a lot of very smooth string sound, solos by woodwind/brass etc most of this is illustrated in the ravel i mentioned.

"John Williams (that Prokofiev-Stravinsky-[Ravel?] mixer)" while i don't pretend to be much of an expert on any of those 4 composers, i find it hard to hear much prokofiev or any stravinsky in john williams.

[Yagan Kiely]

(someone check the veracity of that please!)

More likely Berlioz.

[q]"John Williams (that Prokofiev-Stravinsky-[Ravel?] mixer)" [/q]I tend to see, Dvorak's new world in a lot of Williams, obviously Prokofiev and Stravinsky aswell, but definately Holst Planets. Also the first four notes of Pictures at an exhibition is also the first four notes of a Star Wars track.

The bass ostinato in Duel of the fates can be seen in the Scherzo of the New World, and the last movement of the New World sound remarkably similar to Jaws.

Following on from Ravel, his inspiration in orchestration was Mozart and ... someone from the Baroque era, Italian... can't remember.

Mozart was one of the first to seperate the winds from the strings. He also seperated the bassoon from the bass line in 41 IV. One of the first to have the melody in the Bass line in 39.

Beethoven was also inivitive, building on Mozart, he had big solos for Horn, bassoon and clarinet, in 5 and 6 particularly. Much mentioned in the first post was also be implemented (Although in a strictly beta stage) in Symphony 9.

[matthew]

obviously Prokofiev and Stravinsky aswell, but definately Holst Planets

Are you still talking about John Williams (modern film composer) or Vaughan Williams (early-mid 20th century english composer)? I know Vaughan Williams has elements of prokofiev etc. but i personally don't associate those with John Williams. im not saying you're wrong, im just checking i know exactly who we're talking about.

[kongming819]

Yes definitely John Williams
The beginning to one of his Star Wars songs is a direct rip-off from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (beginning of 2nd part). I think it's a Dune Sea transition song or whatever...
As for Prokofiev, there is this one movie, I can't remember what it is...

Ah OK, so Berlioz? Yes yes that makes sense!...
Which Star Wars track would that be?
Of course, the beginning of the last movement...who would forget? I remember listening to it and thinking that this was the Jaws soundtrack.

Yes, all that is true, now that I can see it put in this way. Wow, I never thought about it in that way.

[Exen]

...The beginning to one of his Star Wars songs is a direct rip-off from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (beginning of 2nd part). I think it's a Dune Sea transition song or whatever...

Its the scene where C3PO and R2D2 are walking in the desert. And remember what Stravinsky said, "A good composer doesn't borrow, they out right steal." Not to mention Stravinsky did not file for copyrights in the states for The Rite of Spring: Scenes of Pagan Russia hence is also why they used in the movie Fantasia.

[kongming819]

That would explain Pulcinella
But, later on, Stravinsky did get the copyright for the Rite, albeit not for the original 1913 edition. He revised it in 1947 and got it published by Boosey & Hawkes and thus that got the copyright for the most recent version of the Rite.
As for Fantasia, curse Stokowski for messing it up!!!!

[Carolus]

Actually, Le Sacre's lack of copyright protection had nothing whatever to do with forgetting to file or anything like that. As a citizen of Russia (USSR after 1918), his works were ineligible for copyright protection in the USA. Hence the (failed) attempt by his publisher, Edition Russe, to claim copyright on the basis of the work of an "editor", one F. Schneider, who was an Amercian citizen.

The work was PD in the USA from the day it was published in 1921, a fact which the folks at Walt Disney were aware of. So, they could do whatever the wished with the work (being PD), and only paid Stravinsky a fee to prevent any potential negative publicity about a composer unfairly denied royalties when his score was used in a famous Disney movie.