Download Varin_Text Frequency Analysis

Janelle Varin
LIS-657
Spring 2015
Text Frequency Analysis of Three Orchestration Treatises
Introduction
Treatises have been written on many musical topics, including music theory, harmony,
performance practice, and orchestration. These works offer instructional information and
discuss what the author believes to be best practices in that area. Recommendations and
practices have changed as technology and ideas have developed. This report will look at three
treatises on orchestration that were written around the turn of the twentieth century, and draw
conclusions on the content based on text mining and analysis. It will then compare the results
and determine possible reasons for differences and similarities.
Question
What effect, if any, does date of publication and author’s main area of employment have
on topics discussed in a treatise on orchestration? To answer this question, I analyzed three
texts: “A Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration” by Hector Berlioz, “Principles
of Orchestration” by Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, and “Orchestration” by Cecil Forsyth. Both
Berlioz and Rimsky-Korsakov are mainly known today for their compositions, while Forsyth is
primarily known for his books on orchestration and music history, and other more scholarly
pursuits. Berlioz wrote “A Treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration” in 1882. He
was a French music critic, composer and conductor, widely known today for his use of tone
color in orchestration. Rimsky-Korsakov was Russian, and also primarily known as a composer
and conductor. In addition to being a colorful orchestrator, his orchestration is especially clear.
His “Principles of Orchestration” was written in 1912. Cecil Forsyth, whose “Orchestration” was
published in 1914, is a lesser-known composer. He is best known as a musicologist and writer.
Background Literature
Hector Berlioz’s work, “A treatise on Modern Instrumentation and Orchestration,” was
the first of the three to be published. In the introduction, the author mentions the fact that
instrumentation was a much-discussed topic in the mid-nineteenth century. He attributes this to
several things, including technological developments, criticism, and the variety of opinions and
theories. He talks about the progress of composition throughout history and the recent
emergence of musicians and composers who focus on orchestration and instrumentation
(Berlioz, 1948).
His book is primarily divided by instrument family. He begins by discussing stringed
instruments, and moves through woodwinds, brass, and percussion. He also has a section
dedicated to new instruments including the saxophone and pianoforte. Each chapter is divided
further by individual instrument. He closes by discussing the orchestra and the art of conducting.
Each of his instrument-focused sections contain a number of musical examples, by various of
his peers and predecessors. In a recent release of the work, with translation and commentary
by Hugh MacDonald, MacDonald states that this work was valued both for its technical
explanation of each instrument as well as its “poetic” discussion of the art of orchestration
(Berlioz & Macdonald, 2002). He feels Berlioz was the author best able to explain the topic, as
well as being a composer highly skilled in the practice.
Thirty years after Berlioz published his treatise, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov released
“Principles of Orchestration.” The work was originally published in two volumes: text and
musical examples. The text portion is arranged much differently from Berlioz’s. He begins with a
chapter on all instrument groups, briefly discussing each. He then moves on to chapters on
melody, harmony, “composition of the orchestra,” the use of vocal parts with an orchestra, and a
supplemental chapter which discusses technical aspects of singing (Rimsky-Korsakov, 1964).
The second volume, containing musical examples, is made up of exclusively his own works.
In Rimsky’s own introduction, he talks about his intention to portray the manner by which
tone quality and uniformity are obtained. He mentions other composers who have excelled at
this, but also questions why more composers have not been able to succeed. Maximilian
Steinberg, editor, states in his preface to the 1922 edition, that Rimsky-Korsakov devoted
himself to the publication of his orchestration treatise (Rimsky-Korsakov, 1964). He also
mentions that his original intention was to include works by other composers, but used his own
because he could not fully understand the reasoning behind the choices that others, especially
those of different nationalities and “schools,” made.
Cecil Forsyth published his “Orchestration” two short years after Rimsky-Korsakov’s
treatise was released. In the author’s preface, he asserts his desire to answer questions about
instruments by outlining their history and development. This can be seen in the manner he
arranges his treatise (Forsyth, 1937). Each instrument has a section devoted to it, under a
larger chapter on its instrument family. This is the entirety of the work, save for an addendum
discussing mainly genealogy and notation. In addition to musical examples, the book also
contains illustrations of instruments.
Methodology
To determine similarities and differences in the three texts, I compared word frequency,
namely which words were used significantly more often in certain works than in others. In
addition, I was interested in finding out which instruments or families of instruments were
discussed most frequently. Using information gleaned by analyzing the top fifty words in each
treatise, I decided how the topic of orchestration was approached by each author. Previous
knowledge and understanding of music topics were essential to be able to draw conclusions on
the books based only on language used.
I used the online tool Voyant (voyant-tools.org) to complete this project. The digital
availability of the three texts was a necessity, and I found them all on the Internet Archive
(archive.org). Each text was copied and pasted from the Internet Archive into the text box
Voyant provides. Once the texts were analyzed, I re-ran each to eliminate stop words using the
Taporware list they provide. I then exported the top fifty words from each text as tabular data in
plain text, and pasted that into a Google spreadsheet. From there, I alphabetized each list in
order to combine any plural words with their singular counterpart. I did not combine all words
that had the same stem, though, because I felt the difference in meaning was often significant.
For example, I left “orchestra,” “orchestral,” and “orchestration” separate because they would
have different uses in the context of this type of work. This combining left me with less than fifty
words, so I went back and retrieved the next few words and repeated the process until I had fifty
unique words.
I then returned the lists to frequency order, and made note of the top ten words in each
list, as well as any instruments mentioned in the top fifty. Lastly, I took only the word portion of
each list, alphabetized them, and positioned them side-by-side. Thus, I was able to determine
which words were shared by two or all of the authors, and which were unique to (the top fifty
words of) one treatise. Using my background knowledge of music, I determined what this data
implied.
Limitations to this experiment include the fact that I only analyzed the top fifty or so
words of volumes that contained over 80,000 words. Had I looked at a larger sample of
language used, my results may have been different. I was also limited by the availability of
works in the Internet Archive. Had I had more time, I could have looked elsewhere for digitized
texts or digitized more recent ones myself. It would have been interesting to compare texts
spanning a wider period of music history.
Results
The results of this experiment were far clearer than I would have expected. I was able to
ascertain the viewpoint of each author using only an analysis of the words they used most
frequently and my previous knowledge of music history.
Based on words unique to his top 50, I was able to infer that Hector Berlioz speaks
primarily about individual instruments and techniques they use. Some of these words include “tr”
(trill), “chromatic,” “scale,” and “difficult,” which imply that he is addressing concerns that would
be held by individual players. In addition, his use of the words “employed,” “written,” “real,” and
“certain” seem to imply that he is dealing with the individual execution of instrumental
techniques. His first ten words include “sounds,” “low,” “high,” and “effect,” which emphasize his
focus. Also among his top fifty words were his own last name and the word “treatise,” possibly
signifying self-citation or reference.
Rimsky-Korsakov, the other well-known composer of the three, also focused on the
performance aspect of orchestration. But while Berlioz was focused on colors that individual
instruments could convey, Rimsky’s focus seems to be more about the overall sound of the
orchestra. Words that support this idea include “harmony,” “melody,” “orchestra,” “brass,”
“woodwind,” and “double.” These show a focus on the ensemble as a whole instead of individual
elements. When making note of which instruments are mentioned in the top 50 words of each
treatise, I saw that while Rimsky does refer to specific instruments, he spends more time talking
about families of instruments, mentioning “strings,” “brass,” and “woodwind” more frequently
than most singular instruments. He also refers to his own works so frequently that three of them
were in his top 50 words: “Snegourotchka,” “Kitesh,” and “Sadko.” There were also plot
elements of the stories he tells with his music: “tsar” and “legend.”
Forsyth, whose work was published last and who was better known as a musicologist
and author than composer, focuses more on the instructional elements of orchestration. This
can be seen in his frequent use of the words “student,” “written,” “notation,” “page,” “series,”
“course,” and “fact.” He also puts more emphasis on the basic, applied aspects of orchestration
and instrumental performance, as portrayed through the words “pitch,” “minor,” “major,”
“position,” “length,” “played,” “player,” and “hand.” As I understood it, “length” is talking about the
length of the instrument’s tubing, which is responsible for its pitch as well as its intonation.
I also wanted to look for similarities in the texts where I thought some might exist.
Namely, that the two composers would talk about similar things, and the two written in the
twentieth century would share characteristics.
I found that Berlioz and Rimsky did use certain words more often than Forsyth. Some of
these words clearly point to the fact that they were best known as composers and conductors:
“conductor,” “movement,” “chords,” “bar,” and “voices.” “Movement” and “bar” refer to the
structure of an orchestral piece, which would be of importance when writing a piece or leading a
group. “Chords” and “voices” also reflect upon the combination of sounds that a conductor or
composer would have to be attuned to. Other words they share include “flute,” “different,”
“quality,” and “high.” “Different” could refer to the variety of sounds heard when leading an
orchestra, and “quality” probably is related to the overall sound a group produces.
I also looked for similarities in the two treatises published in the twentieth century.
Forsyth and Rimsky shared few words, including “time,” “examples,” and “passages.”
“Examples” and “passages” probably just mean that each author chose to use concrete models
to prove their points. I found the frequent use of “time” to be more interesting, and thought
perhaps it was found more in their treatises because the use of varying time signatures would
have been more common and therefore a subject of more discussion in the early twentieth
century than late nineteenth century.
It was interesting that Berlioz and Forsyth also shared some language although they did
not share professional characteristics nor were their treatises published around the same time.
The most unique of these shared terms is “compass.” “Compass” is not a word I hear frequently
when discussing music, and based on its context in both texts, it is referring to the range of an
instrument. Why these two authors would use this unique term is unclear.
Future Directions
As mentioned in the methodology section, this experiment could be expanded to include
treatises from a wider period of music history. While orchestration was not discussed much
before the nineteenth century, it would be interesting to compare these texts with more recent
ones to determine how opinions and viewpoints have changed.
A similar experiment involving text analysis could be performed on texts from other
areas of music study, namely music theory. That is also an area in which ideas have changed
and progressed over the past couple centuries, as compositional techniques have become more
experimental and intended audiences have shifted from the general public to a scholarly elite
(Pleasants, 1955). I would like to see how the language used in music theory treatises has
changed to reflect these alterations, both in terms of the actionable recommendations and the
use of technical lexicon.
Finally, it would also be worthwhile to analyze text found in music scores, including
tempo markings and descriptive language. Comparisons could be made across time periods
and genres to determine if language used reflects differences in compositional technique.
Bibliography
Berlioz, H. (1882). A treatise on modern instrumentation and orchestration: to which is
appended the chef d'orchestre. J. Bennett (Ed.). (M.C. Clarke, Trans.). New York: Novello,
Ewer, & Co. Retrieved from https://archive.org/details/treatiseonmodern00berl
Berlioz, H. (1948). Treatise on Instrumentation. R. Strauss (Rev.). (T. Front, Trans.). New York:
E.F Kalmus.
Berlioz, H. & Macdonald, H. (2002). Berlioz’s orchestration treatise: A translation and
commentary. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Forsyth, C. (1914). Orchestration. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited. Retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/cu31924022381440
Forsyth, C. (1937). Orchestration. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Pleasants, H. (1955). The agony of modern music. New York, Simon and Schuster.
Rimsky-Korsakov, N. (1964). Principles of orchestration: With musical examples drawn from his
own works. M. Steinberg (Ed.). (E. Agate, Trans.). New York: Dover Publications, Inc.
Rimsky-Korsakov, N. (1912). Principles of orchestration: With musical examples drawn from his
own works. M. Steinberg (Ed.). (E. Agate, Trans.). New York: Kalmus. Retrieved from
https://archive.org/details/principlesoforch00rims
Appendix
Comparative chart of top 50 words in each treatise
Berlioz
Forsyth
Rimsky
1st 10
words
Notes, instruments,
sounds, horns, effect,
orchestra, low, high,
voices, clarinets
Instruments, notes,
example, use(d), violin,
passages, horn, strings,
viola, string
Instruments, notes,
examples, harmony,
horns, parts, octaves,
tone, orchestra, bass
Unique
(found
only in 1
or 2
texts)
Compass, modern,
written, tr (trill),
chromatic, employed,
conductor, great, scale,
treatise, like, key,
instrumentation,
difficult, real, Berlioz,
certain
Student, compass, written,
modern, say, minor, major,
notation, pitch, length,
page, symphony, series,
hand, course, position,
played, player, first, fact,
means
Snegourotchka, Kitesh,
Sadko (his pieces),
legend, conductor,
register, tsar, double,
chorus, brass, melody,
woodwind
Instr. in
1st 50
words
horns, clarinets, violins,
trombone, flute
violin, horn, viola, clarinet,
cello, oboe, bassoon
horns, violas, ci (cl?), ob,
fl, violins, fag (bassoon),
trumpets (though mentions
strings before horns and
brass and woodwind
before violas)
Hands on, teaching,
written music, instructional
Overall sound, focused on
himself/ his works
Meaning Individual instruments,
techniques