how to score k284 opening chord

© David Clenman 2006

Orchestrating K. 284, I

The Opening Chord Here is the opening chord as Mozart wrote it:

Score the strings first. The strings are the core of the Classical orchestra; the bulk of the music is played by them. The winds, while they do have important solo functions, often double and fill out what the strings play. Generally, the entire chord should be present in the strings. Having, for example, the strings play only the third, and adding the root and fifth with the winds, would be incorrect. (While such scorings occasionally occur, as we saw in the introduction to Symphony No. 38, they are the exception to the rule, and if they do occur, it is generally on a chord that is not in root position, which would not be an opening chord.) Your first attempt at scoring the chord might be:

This would give us exactly what the piano has, except that the D above middle C is missing. You might be tempted to add this D by including a double stop, for example:


This reproduces the notes exactly. (Notice how putting the low D in either 1st or 2nd violin creates and interlocking, which is desirable.) However, it does not produce the desired effect. Classical first movements often start with a big forte chord—an attention-grabbing announcement. On the piano, Mozart has made the chord almost as full sounding as two hands, using a Classical piano technique, can. (He could have added more notes for the left hand, but this would have sounded more muddy than full.) But the string section of the orchestra is not restricted by the limitations of two hands on a piano keyboard, and Mozart would have scored the chord more fully for the strings. Perhaps we might opt for adding an A just below middle C:

It is not physically possible to play all these notes together on the piano, but it is easy for an orchestra. Notice, also, how putting the A in the violas creates further interlocking. This voicing mimics the harmonic series (bass = fundamental, cello = 2nd harmonic, A that we added = 3rd harmonic, 1st violin low D = 4th harmonic, viola F# = 5th harmonic, 2nd violin = 6th harmonic, 7th harmonic (being C natural) not included as it’s not part of the chord, and 1st violin high D = 8th harmonic): (The A should not be put in the cellos. Double stops sound clearer in the higher strings. Mozart rarely puts double stops in the cello part.)


There is, however, a bit of an imbalance, here. If Vln I and Vla both have double stops, then Vln II should, too. This is easily remedied:

Notice how Vln I, Vln II, and Vla all interlock, which is excellent. However, this is not Mozart’s approach. While he sometimes wants that extra low A (the one below middle C that we’ve put in the violas), he almost never gives it to the strings in a forte D major chord. If he wants that A (and usually he doesn’t), he gives it to a wind instrument.) Furthermore, part of creating the effect of forte is having a wide spread of pitches from low to high—the low pitches give weight to the sound, the middle pitches add body and warmth, and the high pitches add brilliance. What’s missing from the above voicing is brilliance. An examination of Mozart’s orchestral writing shows that the following is a typical Mozart scoring of a forte D major chord:

It is the same as the previous voicing, with the following changes:

• The violas simply have the tonic. In typical Mozartian fashion, in loud passages, the violas often become part of the bass, reinforcing the cellos by doubling them an octave higher (or sometimes at the unison if the notes would get too high.)


• The 1st violins have an extra D an octave higher, adding brilliance. • The F# (third of chord) that had been in the violas, is given to the 2nd violins, an

octave higher. • Both violins have triple stops, providing excitement and drama. The bow action

required for the triple stops mimics the arpeggiation Mozart notated in the piano part. Indeed, it could be argued that Mozart put in this arpeggiation to suggest the dramatic effect of triple stops on strings. Note, also, the wonderful interlocking between the notes of violin 1 and violin 2. Note, also, that these triple stops are easy to play.

The next step would be to add the woodwinds. In a tutti chord, the bassoon doubles the cellos (think continuo). The flute would reinforce 1st violins' principal note (the D), either at the unison or an octave above. The octave above provides more brilliance. The flute would never be placed below the 1st violins. Since in Mozart's day, the top of the orchestral flute’s range was A, four ledger lines above the staff, the choice for the flute here is its high D:


Regarding the bassoons, we do have a choice. To add a little more low bass, the 2nd bassoon could play the D an octave lower, though Mozart doesn't typically do this for a D major chord. As for the oboes, keep the following guideline in mind: for a tutti chord, just as the strings should contain all notes of the chord, i.e. the string section should sound complete in itself, so the woodwinds should have the complete chord, or at least the root and the third. We might thus try the following for the oboes:


This won't work, however. We need to keep in mind the rules of SATB spacing when working with woodwind chords: maximum distance of an octave between adjacent voices, except that a larger distance (according to Handel, a twelfth) is fine between tenor and bass. Thus flute (soprano) is too far from 1st oboe (alto). The following choice of oboe notes would remedy this situation:


Finally, we deal with the brass and timpani. While it is possible to create the entire chord in the brass and timpani, or at least the root and third, the most common way for Mozart to voice an opening chord is to give them only the roots in octaves, thus:


Remember that horns in D transpose down; trumpets in D transpose up. The result is that the brass are spread over three octaves, but the trumpets and horns overlap on the middle D, helping to fuse these two somewhat different sounding instruments into one section. This is a standard horn/trumpet voicing in the Classical orchestra.

how to score k284 opening chord

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