Roger Hecht in a very instructive thumbnail sketch of the
instrument-placement problem wrote in part:

>...Conductors, for it is they who usually decide on this issue,
>are often fooling with setup trying to get the sound they want out of
>particular group of players in front of them.  Stokowski was notorious for
>experimenting with some quite wild setups to produce different effects....

When a decade ago the Munich Philharmonic moved to its new hall, there
was no end of trouble over positioning the band.  Sergiu Celibidache, the
conductor, was at the focal point of it all.  Input from the orchestra
flowed to him where it festered for a while before it then proceeded in the
form of output to the management.  So what happened? Prior to the move the
orchestra had played in the more-or-less conventional pattern: from left
to right, first violins; second; violas; cellos.  Back of the cellos and
violas, the basses, with the rest of the orchestra from there on arrayed
more or less by sections, though some brass was moved hither and yon for
certain pieces and everythingg was squinched together, perforce, for the
enormous forces stipulated by, say Mahler, or Berlioz.  And such was the
arrangement that everyone wanted to retain.  The problem then arose that
Celi couldn't hear his players clearly enough.  All kinds of simple
remedies were tried only to be shrugged off from the podium.  Finally they
installed an array of acoustic sails that suggested in shape something
out of a George Lucas movie.  The podium kept shrugging, the technicians
adjusting.  Finally, during rehearsal one late morning Celi halted the
orchestra with a limp sweep of his left arm and for laden moments glared
up accusingly at the monstrous mobile sculpture tethered on high.  The
with the tragic grace of Socrates downing his hemlock, he gave a shrug so
despondent that his long white tresses whipped down over his brow to cover
entirely his dramatically creased visage.  Screw it, the message came
through, let's just make music.  And they did.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]