The only thing missing in this video is seizing the opportunity to add in Tchaikovskiy's cannons. Nothing tops having a cannon in your orchestra firing away.
Thank you for posting this. Sometimes people are afraid to adapt a format and be considered a copy , but this video is an example of how to recycle something in a brilliant and original way. Much love from Brazil!
Anyone seeing this comment and not checking out Ben's music and that of his collaborators (look up Justice Cow, Adam Neely, and Trust Fund Ozu for a start), you are seriously missing out
I love how it starts as an innocent history class, but quickly becomes a fervent critique of the current classical music establishment. As it should be!
I like how Louis Andriessen simply waved goodbye to the orchestra and wrote for ensembles of pan pipes, saxophone, fender piano, congas, bass guitar, .... Anything but orchestral instruments. Great essay David!
I attended a 40hour-long History of Orchestra course at my university last year and you explained literally every single topic in 13 minutes. I don't know how you made it man! Amazing! P.S. My teacher from that course recently passed away, so this video was also kind of emotional for me...
Some early music nitpicking 😀 0:27 Yeah... but. Instrumental accompaniment was normal, and venetian polychoral style beginning in the 16th century certainly was a driver for different kinds of instruments playing together and for the overall concept of having *any musical line doubled at all*. 0:34 Consorts, especially broken consorts with additional plucked instruments actually sometimes were slightly larger. More like...3 to 10 or so? Also, in the late 16th century, orchestra-like groups of perhaps 15 people playing the same music on different instruments were already not unheard of. 1:07 An additional remark about the instrument list: It is just that, an instrument inventory. The number of players was probably considerably lower than one for each instrument because almost all musicians in the 17. century were multi-instrumentlists. 1:13 Why 10 though? These 10 do make sense if one understands it as a name for the da braccio family. So it's not 10 Violins but 2 5 part da braccio groups consisting of 2 Violins, 2 Violas und one small Bass Viola each. So, almost eyerything is in pairs, it is a double orchestra like capella and favoriti or grosso and soloists, probably also not sorted by sections but in 2 heaps or symmetrically, although this is a bit speculative. 1:54 The first half of the graph is not very accurate. By 1600, Viole da braccio were already well established and one of the most ubiquitous instruments, certainly not rare compared to the gamba. Also, there was never a time when Gambas were much more popular then violins, because neither of them were invented spontaneously but evolved stepwise from their 15th century predecessors. 2:01 That is kinda backwards, at first; in the 16th century the violino, which is designed to play higher then a usual cantus singer, is the oddly high one, the tenor viola and bass viola are the instruments which are suited to play "normal 4 part music" in the range of the vocal ensemble. If one follows the 16th century practice to transpose music written in "high clefs" down by a fourth or fifth, violins are completely useless because one never needs the E string. Also 2:01 Violoncello and double bass as anachronistically played today in most baroque ensembles were actually not the instruments in use through most of the baroque period, with double basses only taking off by the 1710s and 1720s in Germany and even later in France. Before metal wound strings became the standard, instruments needed a longer scale to provide very low pitches. There were different sizes of da braccio bass viola with the larger ones exceeding the cellos scale length by about 3 inches, and the person sized G-Violone, a bastard between braccio and da gamba instruments with about 35 inches of sounding string length. This G-Violone looks like a double bass, but it clearly was an 8 foot instrument meant to play bass lines at sounding pitch; with a clear and brisk tone, and not very loud. Some 16 foot true double basses did exist early on, but were extremely large, unsuited for "modern" fidgety bass lines and, in most regions, never used for secular music through most of the baroque era. 2:33 I would suspect that at least for the ouverture, all players actually did play together- but then switched instruments during the performance according to the greater instrumentation prospect. 2:43 He did have everything doubled including the strings. Multiple strings per part never were the standard throughout the baroque period, with many performances using single or doubled violins. Music was not divided into "chamber" and "orchestral" as today, the late baroque divison was along the line of "vollstimmig" (at least 2 violins + basso ) vs less. Almost all works except for full scale opera and ballet could be executed or were even specifically composed/arranged to be played by quite small ensembles. In court and church settings, soloist or merely doubled violins were the norm. Furthermore and interestingly, merely doubling string parts and also choral parts was wayyyy more prevelant than any larger number of players per part. The first step into "polychoral" is double choir. The first (and usually last) step into beefing up your ensemble was to add one ripienist per part. The idea of having at least 3 of anything to create a "Schmelzklang" was just not prevalent. 4:28 He did, but his famous concerto grosso pieces are playable and were certainly not rarely played by as few as 8 or even 3 players (without the grosso). 4:36 and we hear Brandenburg 3, composed for 11 "soloists" 😀 as were actually all the other brandenburg concertos, young Bach wrote them expecting 7 (V, VI) to 13 (I) musicians in a courtly chamber. With a true double bass featuring only in BWV 1046 if at all. There probably were even more frugal earlier versions of BWV 1047 ( without grosso strings; 6 players), BWV 1048 ( lacking Cello II Cello III; 8-9 players) and BWV 1051 (without 2 viole da gamba; 5 or even 3/4 players). Same for the "orchestral" suites and the harpsichord/violin/oboe concertos. So where is the boundary between orchestral and not-yet-orchestral? Bach did not usually write for an orchestra of 18 or so. 4:47 Concertos in particular were frequently performed with single strings as late as 1750. Most concertos were written with soloist grosso strings in mind. There is lots of performance part material showing this. There was also a tendency in early 18th century concerto repertoire to have exactly 3 violins, one soloist and two "grosso" players. The music itself is in many cases self-evidentially arranged or composed for exactly 3 violins in total. The material also shows: In the genre of suites (neighbouring opera) there was a leaning to double Oboe and Bassoon parts as soon as strings were doubled. Large orchestras of 40 50 as used in opera were very fond of "multi-bassoon alchemy". 🙃
@@sschmidtevalue Ehm... True, it is an understatement. If I was truely nitpicking, I would have complained about the wrong images of instruments in the Monteverdi section at 1:06 . Like trumpets instead of cornetti, Traverso instead of soprano recorder, Clarinet instead of clarino... or about the word "consort" used for any renaissance ensemble. You see? Entertainment and getting things right about the renaissance and baroque period should not be opposites. I know that some of my criticisms might be vacant because of the limited time frame of the video. But this is in some way reinforcing some misconceptions. Yes, that is not too bad and doesn't harm anybody, but it could be better.
@@alfredbackhus6110 Bah. You're like those obsessives that complain that the wrong tanks were used in Patton for one battle or another. Or the lapel insignia on some officer is wrong. Entertainment has it's own constraints. Writing, narrating, choosing materials, animating and editing all take time and resources. This video is a wonderous gift and you're looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.
@@sschmidtevalue - There is a tendency in youtube comment section that any time there is a critisism of the video - regardless of how well put and non-hostile it is - it is met with absurdly out of place hostility. Even so much as just making a simple remark about the video gets you in the red zone. I guess anything that can remind people that not everything is mindless entertainment 24/7 is just too much for people to handle and makes them mad. Stop crying for no reason. This is a comment section to a site that has millions of users from all audiences. Everyone can "nitpick" or do more than just that however they want. That a completely innocent comment with zero ill-meaning behind it can somehow touch your nerve makes me wonder if youtube is filled with teenagers that are just learning to get their emotions under control. Get a chill phill or something.
NAILED the Bill Wurtz-vibe AND the David Bruce vibe; perfect tempo and rhythm! I especially loved the panning on the colour commentary. Now, who the hell do I share this with first?
I loved the tongue-in-cheek approach you've taken here. The content prompts a few peripheral thoughts. I collect music by women composers. A video on female orchestral composers could be cool: Clara Weick Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, cantatas of de la Guerre, oratorios of di Rossi, Farrenc, Mayer, Doderer, Margaret Brouwer, Boulanger(s), Beach, Munktell, Tailleferre, etc. ad infinitum. One place where orchestral music seems to be thriving is in film, interesting in that the performance is substantially removed in time and setting from its audience. A video on the simple notion of the orchestra thriving in film could be fun.
Yea, would especially like CD’s & compilations of tunes by them (especially since instrumental music is gender-neutral to begin with). Also yea, soundtracks are one of the few places that Orchestras with their massive costs can be sustained into the present day, and new material written for them (because we all know their bread & butter isn’t by any means the radio).
I was actually expecting him to mention that the classical orchestra lives on, even thrives in the film score industry including all the creativity and improvements that were happening before the 1900s. And obvious example is Hans Zimmer's use of synthesizers and other non-traditional instruments.
David, you have outdone yourself!!! This video not only talks about the orchestra, but the overall history and explains the current state of classical music. It's really precious, I'll be coming back very soon to it. Thank you ❤
Being a Percussionist in Symphony Orchestras all my life, I can attest that maker of this video is correct when mentioning the vast variety of Percussion instruments becoming more formidable within the entire orchestra itself.
It's a really subtle thing, but I love the inclusion of Anna Meredith on that last visual of the current generation of composers. I love the way her music sounds completely different, new and exciting without sticking to any one genre. It's so captivating and ingenious.
As a percussionist, I am glad to hear that the many instruments are a modern phenomenon. Today I carried percussionstuff for 6 hours. (break down, into the car, out of the car, build up and all the way back, for a really big drum section) We had a marimba, vibraphone, xylothone, glockenspiel, crotales, timpani, bass drum, a drumset (a pretty big one) and some extra small stuff. And we had to break down the marimba and vibraphone because they didn't fit in the van in one piece.
I like the video greatly, but I genuinely don't see the resemblance. Not every fast-paced and lighthearted educational video is a Bill Wurtz video. This has more in common with an Oversimplified video or Casually Explained than Bill Wurtz to be honest.
@@btat16 Yeah, it was a great video but not really that Bill Wurtz-y. And there were a few jokes in this video that were probably put in to try to emulate Bill's style but felt a bit forced and out of place.
@@btat16 I agree, in that it feels like it missed the biggest thing that makes Bill Wurtz' content his; it's the fact that it's all musically arranged. This is -a video on a topic, -slapstick and fast, -(has music?) but lacks the kind of wholistic musical identity/integrity of Bill's stuff (Stock sound effects in this, for instance, versus chords and compositional jokes in Bill's) I also feel the tone in this takes too academic a quality reasonably often, like at 2:30, where things could be further abstracted or personified to emulate Bill's more upbeat, exaggerated simplification. The weird part is the fact that this is on a musically inclined channel led me to expect the musicality of Bill's work to be overrepresented maybe, but it feels almost entirely overlooked instead. Not bad, but not Bill either. A good try though, if nothing else proof that Bill's stuff isn't easy to do
I think that he “Bill wurtzed” it as in that he crammed the entire history of orchestra in one video, like bill wurtz did with “the history of the entire world I guess”
I really like this video because it properly puts classical music in its material, historical, geographical and social context. Much too often, classical music history is focused on abstract musical material and 'great men'. And the fact that you animated it all! Beautifully done.
Wow, David! Did you recently inherit a fortune, get married, have a child, take ayahuasca, and/or just come back from Burning Man? There's a new energy to this video, a sort of... confidence? whimsy? that lets us know, that you know, that we should know, that you're firing on all cylinders. Or.... did you just hire a new editor?
Says "written, presented and animated by David Bruce." My money's on the ayahuasca. In all seriousness, I've always noticed a sense of whimsy in his vids, my guess is "lots of time" is maybe one of the secret ingredients on this one.
Man, I love this documentary. Especially that Terry Gilliam (Monty Python) cartoon style you did. All the work you put in it and all the great humour makes it unbelievable likeable and enjoyable. I definitely gonna go through your channel and with only seeing this video you deserved a like and a new subscriber. I hope you will be able to read this, because you have a new fan now, mate
The brief sample of Night Parade at the end left me speechless! It's such a fresh sound that I would never have associated with an orchestra. It really goes to show how stagnant the mainstream orchestra has become, and how much room for innovation there is.
I am absolutely OBSESSED with every second of this video, thank you for blessing us, David! This is going to be my primary source for my dissertation I can feel it
The evolution and progression of the music over time is very well presented in this video. I could comfortably feel how each composer and era preceded the next. One second I was in the Renaissance and the next I'm in the 1800s and I feel like I understand pretty well how we got there.
If you need an example for creative ways to experiment with an orchestra just look up Hans Zimmer's work. He included an organ (interstellar) or bagpipes (dune) into the orchestra and I think it creates an interesting dynamic to the music and therefore to the movie
Erm, an organ in the orchestra, just how creative is that! Isn't it like an orchetsra within the orchestra?... Oh wait, it wasn't Hans Zimmer at all? It was Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saëns and RIchard Strauss. Btw not very practical, in Katowice the building of the new organ for the fabulous new concert hall takes years and it costs a lot of money. No standard at all.
@@romanczura4146 I'm sorry I don't know all of music's history. I just know that Interstellar has one of the best soundtracks I've ever heard. Plus I didn't say anything about making it a standard. It was meant as an example of creative ways to experiment with orchestral music and finding new sounds
I feel that this video will later be blessed by the algorithm and all of a sudden get lots of view. Looking forward to that day, and this amazing video absolutely deserves it!
Ahaha I relate so hard to the aggressive-romanticist Beethoven moment. Also I'd like to note that I have listened to The Rite of Spring and I don't think the audience's shocked reaction was merely the shock of the new, as even now, without any prior musical sensibilities, the Rite of Spring is still pretty shocking. This coming from someone who's into black metal btw
I wonder, what part does soundtrack composing have on this resurgence of new composing? Is it part of the same orchestral composing establishment or is it a new industry all together?
In "who paid for it?" there should be a mention to the brutal colonization of Africa, Latin America and Asia, which financed the industrial revolution through slavery and the pillage of their natural resources. Other than that, great video. The effort to make academic knowledge easily accessible is much appreciated :)
I mean yeah that happened but it's basically an aside from having anything to do with music. Mind as well say things like "both world wars made hearing classic music difficult" or something equally irrelevant.
@@queuedjar4578 European economy was going into recession at that point. The violent exploitment of the colonies paid for the industrial development which in turn paid for the orchestras
@@queuedjar4578 I don't mean to be rude or divisive. I only bring this up because the video tries to answer the question "who paid for the orchestras", and if you follow the money, it was in fact the ex colonies through centuries of suffering, to consequences they have not fully recovered yet. It's hard to admit because it seems to taint the beauty of orchestras, but that is human history, beautiful and horrid at the same time
This is great! I like how you take on unique stuff with orchestras-maybe for a future video, you could show us what happens if the orchestra doesn’t have a conductor keeping time and helping coordinate and all that? I always look at them and feel like their job is kinda pointless and unneeded-but they seem to have a long practical history, like with the first violinist helping keep time. But it would be interesting to see what happens if you take away the conductor. 👀
Fabulous video! I appreciate the brief explorations of the "why" behind the developments instead of the all too common "x happened, then y happened, then z happened".
This is a great video. And I'm sure you put a lot of effort into it. One Question, though. I know you can't put EVERY classical composer and their music in this video and explain it, but where's Mahler? Not a lot of people are asking this question, but I'm just curious. I'm sure you did not intentionally leave him out, and that could've just been a small mistake. Either way, great video. I'm sure you put a lot of effort in this video, so I'm not bringing this video down or anything, but I was just curious.
Wonderful historical breakdown and analysis! I believe that orchestras are still very much alive in this day and age though --- not so much in traditional concert halls (especially in this pandemic era), but rather as a driving force for other creative works such as cinema and video games, and also fusion genres like prog and symphonic metal.
An excellent video, I'll certainly show it to my students! I was wondering about the role of film and TV scores for the orchestra - isn't that a big part of the work of some orchestras these days? I don't mean just performing Williams of Nyman or Shore pieces for an audience, but recording new music. BTW I loved the brief snippet of Night Parade - would love to hear the full piece!
Beautiful video and brilliant editing, I had so much fun watching this! Must have taken a lot of time to animate all that. Thank you so much for this amazing work. Subscribed!
Dear David Bruce, The modern orchestral music fascinates me because it's challenging and exciting. It's interesting because it's not a commodity like payola generated product. But there's a backside to things complex: it's hard to find the good bits. Wouldn't it be grand if someone with great knowledge and wisdom put together little helps, let's call them spotify lists, of contemporary music of quality by composers still active and actually living?
Well, although that may be awfully comfortable for the listener, I think that is a very dangerous idea. Since the contemporary music is still in the making, the listener has the very important role to judge and evaluate for their own wether a piece is good or not, that's how the timeless classics are sorted out. I personally don't think only one person should evaluate for so many open-minded people, because that certainly effects the choice which pieces survive, as well as it effects that future music is written in a certain style to the liking of one person. Peace and out✌
i hate to be the bearer of bad news, but literally everything under capitalism is a commodity. i quite like a handful of modern composers, but theyre people trying to earn a living and sell their music lol, theyre not Pure Artists Free From Economic Constraints.
@@esthersmith3056 Not my point. We all have to make a living somehow. But the music topping the charts today do not so by merit, but buy paying for exposure.
What an amazing condensation of the timeline. And I'm loving the animations and the lively and snarky commentary. The amount of thought and care and effort that went into this is palpable. Thank you for creating this!
This is one of the most well made youtube videos I've seen in a while, informative but doesn't ask too much of you. Animation is brilliant and so is the script, it's funny and keeps the video moving. Your effort paid off!
What fantastic content! A quite exceptional combination of historicism, snappy storytelling, editing, wit and acute intellectual observation. A RU-vid virtuoso indeed, as was pointed out in an earlier comment.
Not quite Wirtzian. It's not quite as silly and zany. But it's the way of summarizing combined with David's laid back, explanatory style, and that's good enough. :)
Great overview. Wasn't it Gustav Mahler who took the orchestral requirements to the extreme, making it hard to perform his symphonies because he required such a huge instrumental line-up? I guess I'm lucky to live in Austria with a variety of great orchestras for both classical and contemporary music.