ABSTRACT
There are times when the general tone, character and atmosphere of a passage, or a given moment in an orchestral work point to one, and only one particular manner of scoring. The following simple example will serve for explanation. Take a short phrase where a flourish or fanfare call is given out above a tremolando accompaniment, with or without change in harmony. There is no doubt that any orchestrator would assign the tremolo to the strings and the fanfare to a trumpet, never vice versa. But taking this for granted, the composer or orchestrator may still be left in doubt. Is the fanfare flourish suitable to the range of a trumpet? Should it be written for two or three trumpets in unison, or doubled by other instruments? Can any of these methods be employed without damaging the musical meaning? These are questions which I shall endeavor to answer.
