THE BERLIOZ-STRAUSS TREATISE

ON INSTRUMENTATION
BY EDWARD LOCKSPEBER

I T IS hardly possible nowadays to devise a manual for orchestrators.

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The introduction of electronically produced sounds and of tape
recordings makes the earlier instrumental treatises seem wholly
remote. The last comprehensive guide for orchestrators is Gardner
Read's 'Thesaurus of Orchestral Devices' (1953), and here it is
categorically stated that "nothing seems to date more quickly than
an orchestration text book".1 But this is not to say that earlier
treatises, useful to composers over a limited period, have not also a
wider historical significance. Indeed, theoretical works on the
orchestra such as those of Gevaert (1885), greatly admired by
Strauss, Widor (1906), in the form of a revision of the Berlioz
treatise, and Rimsky-Korsakov (in Steinberg's edition, 1912) often
illuminate forgotten stylistic secrets of the orchestra or analyse
problems of instrumental combinations that would otherwise elude
us.
Strauss's revision of the Berlioz's 'Treatise' 1 similarly illuminates
a period of orchestral history, perhaps the most critical in the
transition from the nineteenth to tbe twentieth century. It reveals
the many links between the orchestra of Berlioz, rooted in Gluck
and Weber, and the orchestra of Strauss and his contemporaries
based on Wagner. By 1904 (the date appended to the foreword)
Strauss had written his principal symphonic poems and was engaged
on 'Salome1'—that is to say, he had himself written the most
resplendent of the post-Wagnerian orchestral works. He therefore
felt able to state that although Berlioz's treatise "stressed the
aesthetic aspects of orchestral technique giving the careful reader a
vision of the whole Wagner", it nevertheless contained 'gaps'
1
In the "History of Orchestration' (1925) Adam Carse lists the works on orchestration
published between the Berlioz Treatise' and Rimiky-Korsakov's 'Principles of
Orchestration' (F.ngliih version, 193a). "All", he declares, "begin to be out-of-date from
the moment they are written". Richard Strauss in hii foreword to the Berlioz Treatise' is
similarly cautious: "In the art of instrumentation the question of theoretical books is
highly problematic".
•Berlioz's 'Grand Trait6 d'lnstrumentation' (1843) was twice translated into
German, by J. C. Grunbaum and Alfred DdrffeL Minor additions and corrections were
supplied by Felix Weingartner in 1904. Richard Strauss's edition, 'Instrumentationslehre',
appeared in 1905. Strauss's comments and additions to Berlioz's Treatise' appeared
separately in French under the title 'Richard Strauss, Le Traite d'Orchestration d'Hector
Berlioz. Commentaires et adjonctkras co-ordonnes et traduits par Ernest Closson',
pp. 92 (Leipzig, 1909). Strauss's edition was translated into F.ngliA by Theodore Front
under the title Treatise on Instrumentation by Hector Berlioz, enlarged and revised by
Richard Strauss' (New York, 1948).

37
likely to render the whole work obsolete. Refraining from changing
Berlioz's text in any way, he added technical details (particularly in
regard to the valve mechanism of the brass instruments) and
described new achievements, "especially in Wagner's work".
"Instrumentation is, in music, the exact equivalent of colour in
painting", said Berlioz in 'A travers chants', thereby indicating a
parallel development in painting—the movement which began with
the colour theories of Delacroix and which is particularly relevant to
the rise of the Romantic orchestra. This was a parallel but not an
identical development: colour is a metaphor in music, despite the

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fact that Baudelaire and before him E. T. A. Hoffmann had pro-
claimed an interpenetration of this concept of colour among
musicians and painters. A certain confusion in artistic theories may
have resulted from Baudelaire's overbold theories—by his nature he
was drawn to the whole empire of sensation—and certainly the
concepts of colour in music and painting have frequently overlapped.
Strauss's foreword to the 'Treatise', written at the height of the era
of the Impressionist orchestra, reveals an obsession with instrumental
colour. In a review of earlier developments he assesses the symphonies
of Haydn and Mozart ("one might almost call them string quartets
with obbligato woodwind and noise instruments, horns, trumpets
and timpani, to re-inforce the tutti"), and also the symphonies of
Beethoven. These, he maintains, likewise "cannot hide the mark of
chamber music". Surprisingly, he asserts that the symphonies of
Beethoven were dominated by "the spirit of the piano", meaning
presumably that the lay-out of Beethoven's scores was determined by
keyboard associations; and he adds that this same pianistic character
"completely dominates" the orchestral works of Schumann and
Brahms—a generalization of doubtful accuracy. The freedom of the
string writing in Beethoven's last quartets is not to be found in his
symphonies; it is recaptured, Strauss declares, in the string writing in
'Tristan' and 'Die Meistersinger1. "Colouristic effects alien to the
style of chamber music" are observed in Gluck and Weber before
they become a means of expression complete in themselves in the
works of Wagner.
All this indicates a bias in favour of the contemporary orchestra:
Strauss, the Mozartian, was obviously arguing a point here.
However, having proposed this somewhat unorthodox summary he
proceeds to evaluate the Romantic achievement of Berlioz. Was
Berlioz primarily a symphonic or an opera composer? Perhaps,
Strauss suggests, "he was not dramatic enough for the stage and not
symphonic enough for the concert hall", though he concedes that
"he was the first to derive his inspiration from the character of
orchestral instruments" and that in his attempt to combine stage
and concert hall "he discovered new and splendid resources for the
orchestra". In these, as in other observations, Strauss was echoing
the spirit of an age too overwhelmed by the spirit of Wagner to

38
respond to the ideals of Berlioz and his predecessors, Gluck and
Weber. He writes, for instance, that Berlioz "failed to justify his
use of dramatic effects in symphonic works" since he was primarily a
"lyrical or epic" composer. Berliozians take the opposite view. They
maintain that it was precisely Berlioz's lyrical or epic nature that
destined him for the stage and that ultimately triumphed in 'Les
Troyens'. In fact, Berlioz often anticipated Wagner's orchestral
methods, as Strauss admitted in his foreword. Nor did Strauss's
criticisms stop there. "This bold innovator", he writes, "had no
feeling at all for polyphony"—he was referring to the fact that Bach

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brought nothing to Berlioz's technique.' Dramatic ideas cannot be
presented in music "without rich polyphony". There speaks the
composer of the decorative embellishments in 'Till EulenspiegeT
and 'Salom6'; there speaks the Wagnerian nurtured on Bach. Two
civilizations face each other in these composers—Berlioz drawn to
the lyrical elements of the orchestra, Strauss involved in a complex
multi-coloured treatment.
One is aware that this opposition is treated by Strauss, in the
course of his revision of the 'Treatise', with playful malice.*
Illustrations from Gluck,' whose works form the foundation of
Berlioz's orchestral ideas, are invariably contrasted with illustrations
from Wagner. Referring to one of the numerous effects of the string
tremolo' expressing "unrest, excitement and terror", Berlioz quotes
the scene of the oracle in Act I of 'Alceste'.' Played near the bridge,
it produces, Berlioz graphically states, "a sound similar to that of a
rapid and powerful waterfall". He also describes an "undulating
tremolo", which had fallen out of use even during his lifetime, and
which consisted of slurred notes played at a slow speed so that none
• In the Treatise' Berlioz had written a paragraph on organ fugues, which normally
consisted, he «aid, of "twisted and tangled phrases , producing a continuous "commotion
of the entire system"; also that they presented an "appearance of disorder" and that they
contained "detestable harmonic absurdities appropriate in depicting an orgy of savages or
a dance of demons". To this Strauss replies: "Although I share Berlioz's opinion regarding
organ fugues, this whole paragraph seems to me to be inspired by his purely personal
hatred of the polyphonic style in general—a hatred not generally shared even by the
admirers of Berlioz's genius. In this respect the German and the Latin are antipodes".
• Strauss was surely aware of the long drawn-out conflict between Berlioz and
Wagner, and of Berlioz's opinion of the prelude to 'Tristan', in which he perceived "no
other theme than a sort of chromatic moan, full of dissonant chords, of which the long
appoggiaturas that replace the real note only increase the cruelty" ('A travcrs chants',
1863).
• In the unfinished preface written for the 'Principles of Orchestration' in 1891
Rimsky-Korsakov, like Strauss, proclaims the value of contemporary scores: "Fairly
modern music will teach the student how to score—classical music will prove of negative
value to him. It is useless for a Berlioz or a Gevacrt to quote examples from the works of
Gluck. The musical idiom is too old-fashioned and strange to modem ears; such examples
are of no further use today. The same may be said of Mozart and of Haydn". In search of
historical authenticity we nowadays reverse this judgment; we wish to revive die impact of
earlier orchestral styles.
• Only a personal choice of orchestral devices is made by Berlioz, and this also
applies to the supplementary examples of Strauss. In the preface to his voluminous
•Thesaurus' Gardner Read writes: "If every example of the use of the bow tremolo in the
strings had been given, dierc would literally have been room for nothing else in the book".
'English edition of the Berlioz-Strauss Treatise', p. 13. Odier musical examples
mentioned in the text can easily be identified by reference to die excellent index in this
edition.

39
of the performers played the same number of notes in a bar. This
"wavering or indecision", favoured by Gluck, was "perfectly
adapted to render uneasiness or anxiety". Strauss does not comment
on these strange other-worldly effects. His examples of the string
tremolo include Siegmund's call, 'Walse, Walse', in the first act of
'Die Walkiire'; the monotonously raging storm "with the whipping
of the rain and hail by the wind" at the beginning of the opera
(the famous D octave on violins and violas); and "the rustling of the
leaves and the blowing of the wind" produced by chromatic
harmonies at the beginning of the second act of 'Tristan'. Though

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nowadays despised, imagery of this kind, pictorial or psychological,
frequently lights up the poetic processes of a composer's mind. The
tremolo has a remote history, but mutes, judging from Berlioz's
examples, seem at that time to have been used only sparingly.
Gluck's 'Alceste' (Act II, 'Chi mi parla') and the sudden transition
from muted to bright tones in the 'Queen Mab' scherzo are Berlioz's
only examples; nor does Strauss conspicuously add to these effects by
illustrations from 'Die Meistersinger' and 'Tristan'. In 1904 Strauss
might have given examples of some of the entirely novel muted
string writing in Debussy and Mahler.
Abundant quotations from five of Gluck's operas are given by
Berlioz, and it is again Gluck who was his model for the use of the
viola. A precursor, in 'Harold en Italie', of the present-day vogue for
the viola, Berlioz refers to "the terrible persevering murmur of the
violas" and "particularly to the timbre of its third string" in
'Iphig6nie en Tauride' (when Orestes falls asleep with the words 'Le
cahne rentre dans mon cceur').' Elsewhere melodies on the high
strings of the viola are said to achieve miracles in "scenes of a
religious or ancient character". Strauss, confronted with these
choice examples, falls back automatically on the scores of Wagner
and refers to the more deeply coloured passages in 'Tannhauser',
'Lohengrin' and 'Die Meistersinger'. There is apparently more
agreement in their approach to Gluck's treatment of the woodwind.
Berlioz was inspired by the low sustained notes on the flute (which
actually have a trumpet quality) in 'Alceste' and in Agatha's prayer
in 'Der Freischiitz'; Strauss was drawn to this same effect in
'Lohengrin'.* The third act of 'Armide', in which Armide sings
'Sauvez-moi de l'amour', is Berlioz's modest example of an oboe
melody, whereupon Strauss counters with extended oboe melodies
from Berlioz's own works, namely those in 'King Lear', 'Benvenuto

* "To the viola, the Cinderella of the String Orchestra, Gluck wa» the fairy
godmother who rescued the instrument from a mean position and made it not only
independent and indispensable, but discovered in it an individuality which was quite its
own, a peculiarity of tone-colour with which no other member of the string family was
endowed" (Carse, op. at., p. 157).
• "Modern masters generally keep the flutes too persistently in the higher ranges",
Berlioz comments. "The flutes predominate in the ensemble instead of blending with it".
"Very true indeed!", adds Strauss, writing before 'Daphnis et Chlo6' and 'Le Sacre du
printemps'.

40
Cellini' and the 'Symphonie fantastique'. The cor anglais is
illustrated by the well-known passage in the 'Scene aux champs' (so
romantically described), and by its use in the first and second acts
of 'Lohengrin'. Finally, Gluck and Wagner face each other in their
very different use of trombones and cymbals.
A forgotten world of instrumental colour can be reconstructed if
we look behind these marginal remarks of Strauss. Berlioz was aware
of the affinities between the orchestra of Gluck and the orchestra of
Weber: both display the same freshness of woodwind colour, the
same sense of graded colours in string writing; Strauss, on the other

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hand, was aware of Weber's affinity with Wagner. He realized that
the separate colour schemes sought out by Weber in his combinations
of divided strings (violins, violins and violas, violas and cellos) led
to Wagner's infinite wealth of string colouration. But it was above
all the motives inspiring Weber's woodwind writing, particularly his
clarinet writing, that set Berlioz's Romantic heart alight. In one of
the most eloquent passages in the 'Treatise' he speaks of "those
coldly threatening effects" in the lower register of the clarinet,
producing "those dark accents of quiet rage which Weber so
ingeniously invented". His description, in the original, of the clarinet
in 'Der Freischutz' forms an exquisite vignette of Romantic writing:

Jc n'ai jamais pu entendre de loin une musique militaire sans fctre

vivement imu par ce timbre f&ninin des clarinettes, et pr6occup6
d'images de cette nature, comme apres la lecture des antiques
Epopees. Ce beau soprano instrumental si retentissant, si nche
d accents p6n6trants quand on Pemploie par masses gagne dans le
solo en d^licatesse, en nuances fugitives en affectuosites mystdrieuses
ce qu'il perd en force et en puissants Eclats. Rien de virginal, rien de
pur comme le coloris donni a certaines melodies par le timbre
d'une clarinette jou£e dans le medium par un virtuose habile.
C'est celui de tous les instruments a vent, qui peut le mieux faire
naitre, enfler, diminuer et perdre le son. De la la faculty pr^cieuse de
produire le lointain, l'icho, l'6cho de l'dcho, le son cr^pusculaire.
Quel plus admirable exemple pourrai-je citer de l'application de
quelques unes de ces nuances, que la phrase rfiveuse de clarinette,
accompagn6e d'un tremolo des instruments a cordes, dans le milieu
de PAllegro de l'ouverture de Freyschiltz! N'est-ce pas la vierge
isolee, la blonde fiancee du chasseur, qui les yeux au del, mele sa
tendre plainte au bruit des bois profonds agites par l'orage? O
Weber!

Strauss goes only part of the way with Berlioz in his evocation of
romantic forests and twilights. He was writing in a more realistic age,
his remarks reflecting passionate, underlying associations. The
clarinet, he says, which has "so much sweetness and innocence in
Weber" becomes in 'Parsifal' "the embodiment of demoniac
sensuality", proclaiming in Kundry's scenes "the dreadful and
haunting voices of seduction". However, the composer of Brander's
ironic 'Histoire d'un rat' in the 'Damnation de Faust' would have

4*
wholly endorsed Strauss's selection, in the chapter on the bassoon, of
a passage in 'Euryanthe'. One might almost be listening to Berlioz's
own words: "Weber draws from the bassoon heart-rending tones of
suffering innocence—in the cavatina (Act III) of Euryanthe
languishing alone in the forest".10
The Strauss edition made a big impact on the French and
Belgian musical worlds in the decade before the first World War.
In his enthusiastic review of the work in the Brussels journal Le
Guide Musical11 Ernest Closson draws attention to the fact that no
examples of Russian music are given. Indeed, Strauss seems not to

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have been greatly drawn to the Russian school;11 otherwise the
volume, by drawing upon examples from the national school, and
particularly Rimsky-Korsakov and Moussorgsky, both of whom
regarded the 'Treatise' as their bible, would have been much larger.
Nor are there illustrations, Closson notes, from the "young French
school", which, one imagines, does not include Gharpentier, since
there is a reference to the use of the celesta in an opera that was a
particular favourite of Strauss, 'Louise'. (The American publishers
have substituted the fanfare for muted trumpets in 'Fe'tes' for
Strauss's illustration from 'Feuersnot'.) But the interesting affinity
that we are now able to establish is between certain aspects of the
orchestration of Berlioz and Debussy. The 'Queen Mab' scherzo and
the opening section of 'Fe'tes' are certainly the works where the two
composers seem to have been inspired by the same lightness of
texture. One sees here the same swift and elusive figurations; the
same unexpected gleam of instrumental colour (the flashing flutes in
'Fe'tes', the pastel shades of a pair of horns in the scherzo); the
same vivacity and airiness; and the same concern with the timbres of
cymbals, the metallic antique cymbals in the scherzo (earlier used
by Debussy for a glinting effect in 'L'Apres-midi d'un faune') and
the large cymbal, tingling in the air in an Impressionist fashion in
'Ffites'. I think it is right to say that in both cases the models for this
type of orchestration must have been the three fairy choruses in
Weber's 'Oberon', and particularly the Presto agitato in the chorus
'Spirits of Air and Earth and Sea' (Act I I ) . " It is certain that
Debussy regarded Weber's work as "the best treatise on instrumenta-
tion", and he also held that Weber had hardly been surpassed in
"orchestral chemistry"14 even at the beginning of the twentieth
10
Thii cavatina, not quoted in the revision, opens with a largo recitative for
unaccompanied bassoon extending over the entire range of the instrument.
u
N o s . 39-41, 1909.
*• Writing in 1907 of a discussion on TBoris Godounov' with Strauss, Romain Rolland
recalls the following conversation: "Rolland: 'It's an opera with genius in it'. Strauss:
'I don't know a Russian opera that has genius'. Rolland: There'i this one'. 'Ah!' says he.
"But he'll never look at it'" ("Richard Straun and Romain Rolland: Correspondence',
1968J.
"Referring to the 'Queen Mab' scherzo in 'Portrait* et Souvenirs' (1900)
Saint-Safins writes: "Auprei de telles ddlicatesses, de telles transparcnces . . . je ne vois
que le chceur des genies A'Ob iron qui puissent soutenir la comparaison".
14
See Robert Godet, 'Weber and Debtmy", Tht ChtsUrim, June 1926.

42
century. 'Oberon', profoundly admired by both Berlioz and
Debussy, thus forms a link between these two great orchestrators.
Omissions of French and Russian music were observed by
Glosson, but not, apart from the works of Strauss himself, the
omission of contemporary German and Austrian music. Mahler is
mentioned only casually in the revision, in regard to his use in the
symphonies of high clarinets and percussion instruments. Yet here
again, with hindsight, we are able to perceive resemblances seldom
imagined by earlier generations. We see now, for instance, that
Mahler inherited Berlioz's sense of musical irony, which he enlarged

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and magnified, and that it was Mahler, in his 'Symphony of a
Thousand', who realized the Berliozian ideal of a miniature army of
performers. Orchestrally, Mahler nearly always leans in the direction
of Berlioz rather than Wagner. However this may be, a striking
glimpse of the affinity between Mahler and Berlioz was given by a
French critic, Ame"d6e Boutarel, in his notice of a performance,
which Mahler conducted in Paris in 191 o, of his second symphony.
Ten years earlier Mahler had conducted the 'Symphonie fantastique'
there. Is Mahler's enormous second symphony, expressing a com-
plexity of ideas within too restricted a framework, "not an enlarged,
amplified and exaggerated Fantastic Symphony?" this critic asks.
The Allegro of this symphony corresponds to 'Reveries et passions',
the minuet "is the 'Ball' movement removed to another setting and
another period". Berlioz in the 'Scene aux champs' shows us the
artist in Nature; Mahler follows his wanderings in the Viennese
Prater. Memories of the 'Marche au supplice' and the 'Dies irae'
are recalled in the heroic march and the funeral chorale of the
finale, where, as in Berlioz, there is "a certain admixcure of irony
and faith and an intermingling of despair and ecstasy". Nor are
comparisons restricted to these moral issues. M. Boutarel continues:

There is the same obsession with colliding musical ideas, violent

sonorities, lugubrious silences, drum effects, and there is even as in
the Berlioz work, a flute warbling about in the middle of the finale.
Everything about the work suggests the grandiose genius of Berlioz
where contrasts are thrown sharply into relief.1*
Praising Strauss's Wagnerian sympathies, so abundantly
illustrated in the revision, Glosson observes that "ce quelque chose
de chaleureux et de passionne"" in Strauss's orchestral style is not
to be found among the French followers of the Wagnerian tradition.
Oddly, he does not note that in the section on the horn there is no
mention of the famous horn passages in Strauss's own works, nor
does Strauss refer to the horn solo in the 'Chasse royale', which was
written sixteen year3 after Berlioz published the 'Treatise' and must
surely have been known to him. A good half of the examples in the
revision provided by Strauss, Qosson notes, are taken from Wagner.
u
Lt Mtntstnl, 5 March 1910.

43
They are the 'Faust' overture, i ; 'Der fliegende Hollander' and
'Siegfried Idyll', 2; 'Go tterdammerung' and 'Parsifal', 3; 'Rheingold',
6; 'Lohengrin', 7; 'Siegfried', 8; 'Tannhauser', 9; 'Die Walkiire',
16; 'Die Meistersinger', 17; 'Tristan', 18.
'Tristan' crowns the list, one notes, but it was precisely in
'Tristan' that some of Wagner's most characteristic melodic ideas
were fertilized (as Gerald Abraham, Jacques Barzun and others
have shown)" by the earlier ideas of Berlioz in 'Rome'o et Juliette'.
This must be the place to recall the terms of a well-known document
in which Wagner himself indicates his indebtedness to the master of

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the early Romantic orchestra. He is writing in 'Mein Leben' of a
performance of 'Rome'o et Juliette' conducted by Berlioz in Paris in
1839-40:

All this, to be sure, was quite a new world to me, and I was desirous
of gaining some unprejudiced knowledge of it. At first the grandeur
and masterly execution of the orchestral part almost overwhelmed
me. It was beyond anything I could have conceived. The fantastic
daring, the sharp precision with which the boldest combinations—
almost tangible in their clearness—impressed me, drove back my
own ideas of the poetry of music with brutal violence into the very
depths of my soul. I was simply all ears for things of which till then I
had never dreamt, and which I felt I must try to realise. True, I
found a great deal that was empty and shallow in 'Rom60 et Juliette',
a work that lost much by its length and form of combination; and
this was the more painful to me seeing that, on the other hand, I felt
overpowered by many really bewitching passages which quite
overcame any objections on my part.

'A new world' by which Wagner was 'overwhelmed' and which

drove back his own ideas to the depths of his soul—this was a
generating force, an influence, a form of cross-fertilization between
Berlioz and Wagner which has had the effect of keeping their work
alive for us up to the present day.

u
See G. Abraham, 'The Influence of Berlioz on Wagner', Music & LtlUn, July
1924: and J. Barzun, 'Berlioz and the Romantic Century', li (1951): "A comparison of
Tristan with certain parts of the Romeo and Jvlitt Symphony snows that Wagner was
struck by Berlioz's idea of rendering a love call orchestrally by mean* of the gradual
amplification of an initial 'call' or unsatisfied musical start" (p. 184).

44