ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the process by which violin bands of orchestral size came to be established in various European musical centres, and how and why groups of wind instruments came to be added to them. It argues that it was the desire to combine instruments of different families that led to the remodelling of a number of types of woodwind instruments the transition from Renaissance consorts to Baroque solo instruments that was the subject of the conference. Players also began to use it in the new orchestras that were being developed in Italian churches and for special occasions in Rome. A decisive moment in the development of the orchestra came when violin bands were first combined with wind instruments. In France, five-part writing with three violas was particularly associated with the court orchestras, the Vingt-quatre violons, the Petit violons and the orchestra that played for the court opera, the Academie Royale de Musique.
