Eric James wrote:

>I think you only have to ask yourself: Are there composers today who
>constantly smite their brows in frustration over the limitations of
>today's instruments?

It's a moot point.  You're talking more about the limitations of the human
body than about instruments.  With electronics you can produce just about
any sound your heart desires.  I think as far as technical difficulty goes
the point is, composers have always written stuff that's too hard, then
somebody learns to play it.

The piano, IMO, arose as a result of, or perhaps coincidentally with,
the practice of dynamic shadings within the phrase.  It could have been
invented earlier, but would not have flourished if extensive and continuous
dynamic shaping were not a musical value in instrumental (at least
keyboard) performance.  History is full of examples of inventions that
did not catch on because there was no perceived need for them, only to
be reinvented later, when they were found useful.

As far as the possibilities of playing the stringed instruments are
concerned--almost every aspect of contemporary techique (both solo and from
the standpoint of orchestral arrangments) were known in the 17th and 18th
centuries.  Composers did use them occasionally.  But writing in the style
of R. Strauss would not have been possible because such things were simply
outside the scope of what was considered acceptable.

I don't have the time or energy right now to consider the implications
of range and dynamic extensions of instruments (just one more low note,
please? Huh?), or when the desire for them became a pressing need.  It's
probably true, as Buelow asserted, that Beethoven would have rewritten
certain passages in his piano sonatas had he had more keys on his
instrument.  I don't think there is one satisfactory answer to the question
as to whether we should go ahead and do it now that we DO have the keys.
Clearly he seemed to be THINKING in terms of an expanded range, but just as
clearly he could not WRITE it, since it would have been unplayable.  It's
also true that one could go on (reductio ad absurdum) up to the limit of
human hearing, if one wanted to keep a passage rising and rising (should
such a thing ever be compositionally desirable) but there will come a point
where you've GOT to drop down that octave.  So perhaps we should argue
about the unfortunate limitations of the human body.

Which brings me to another philosophical question--does a composer NEED
to have a certain lower and higher limit in order to express ideas? Or
always be testing limits? Are limits necessarily bad?? Or does a composer
work with what he or she has? (OK, maybe it's the same question.) Composers
have purposefully placed limitations on their freedom in the interest of
providing structure for their music.  Structure can be applied in the most
limited circumstances (I'm thinking of the Lassus 2-part motets).  The
serialism of Babbitt is totally in the tradition of canonic imitation,
isorhythm, motivic development, and the "developing variation" of Brahms.
Structure is ultimately liberating and can be achieved with fairly
restricted and severe means.  OTOH making constant demands on instrument
builders and players doesn't make you a great composer.

Ives is an interesting case.  He not only wrote beyond the level of
most players (thus ensuring a certain protracted isolation and neglect)
but himself considered ANY physical performance of some music to be an
inadequate representation of a more cosmic form of expression.  His final
(or at any rate most ambitious) project, the "Universe" symphony, he
considered uncompletable by any single person.  If memory serves me, he
even hoped that future composers would take it up and add to it.  I don't
wanna go look it up right now.  Maybe somebody can refresh us here.

>I understand Richard Strauss wrote an E below the g-string in Heldenleben
>for the violins.  Does this mean then that all violins--to hell with
>Stradivarius--should have their lower register stretched down a minor
>third?

If Strauss did that it had to have been a misprint.  Or he must have
been in one hell of a hurry!  NO composer--read my lips--of his stature
(not to mention the fact that he revised and expanded Berlioz's historic
treatise on instrumentation) would be ignorant of the range of the violin.
Certainly not one who knew enough to write those violin solos in
Heldenleben, Zarathustra and Bourgeois Gentilhomme.  Now the case of Verdi
writing a low C for piccolo in (was it?) the Requiem makes more sense.
Here he could have been thinking of the analogy with the flute.  The
piccolo only goes down to d.  Another "mystery"--did Beethoven really have
access to 5-string basses, or basses with extensions, to double the range
of the celli below E the nominal lowest note on the double bass? That
question has never been satisfactorily answered.  The "best guess" is that
he wrote one part intending to be doubled, and knew that the basses would
fudge those out-of-range notes an 8ve higher.  But that still isn't a very
good guess.

My own guess is that composers, while nearly always interested in
instrument technology (Bach was an expert on organs, etc.) were by and
large pretty accepting of the status quo.  A Boesendorfer 18-foot grand
(I'm exaggerating--a little) would have been most likely beyond Bach's
most surreal imaginings.  The idea of composers inventing their own
instruments because the standard ones are too limited seems to be limited
to 20th-century figures like Partch.  (If I've forgotten somebody earlier,
I'm SURE some lister will call it to my attention.) ;-)

Chris Bonds