Classical Music Listening Club: Timbre through Time

Cowbells, coconut shells, a duck call and a referee’s whistle – these are just a few instruments called for in James MacMillan’s Britannia, composed in 1994. But why does the orchestra shrink so much for the romantic-era violin concerto of Felix Mendelssohn and classical-era Symphony No. 104 of Haydn? The art of orchestration is all about which instruments play and when. We’ll learn about the evolution of the orchestra’s instruments and how and why it has expanded to include so many new colors.