DIVISI

posted by James Reel

    In his Orange County Register review of a Philadelphia Orchestra tour concert, Timothy Mangan identifies trouble that Philly shares with the Tucson Symphony:

    The way that [conductor Christoph] Eschenbach has the orchestra seated may be a problem. The first and second violins are split right and left, and the cellos and basses are massed behind the first violins. In Brahms' Symphony No. 1, which concluded the concert, this left the first violins high and dry, playing against a dark sonic background of cellos and basses rather than with the close harmonic support of the second violins. The first violins sounded wiry.
    Nor could you hear the seconds properly much of the time. Seated on the right, their sound is sent away from the audience, toward the back of the stage.

    This is precisely what has been going on with the Tucson Symphony’s sound since music director George Hanson moved the second violins over to the right. True, there are excellent historical and musical justifications for this arrangement. Splitting the violins across the stage was common 200 years ago, and composers often took advantage of this set-up by writing quasi-antiphonal material for the first and second violins—they fully intended the musical strands to sound separately. This was probably accomplished with little fuss when orchestras were smaller, playing in smaller halls.
    But now, even though we have a lot more violins to produce sound, when the second violins are moved to the right their sound is projected toward the back of the stage and up into the cavern that is the modern orchestra shell, and it isn’t properly bouncing back into the hall. (At least that’s what happens in the perpetually acoustically troubled Tucson Music Hall.) Thus, instead of bringing greater clarity to the second-violin line, the setup causes 10 to 12 professional violinists to saw away to little audible purpose.
    Here’s an arrangement I think would delineate the lines adequately while allowing all the sections to be heard: from left to right, first violins, violas, second violins, cellos and basses. This way, all the instruments are more or less facing the audience, but the violin parts are separated, and the violas don’t turn to mush, which they usually do when they’re pressed up against the cellos. Does anybody have any experience with this layout?