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Orchestral landmarks

Orchestral landmarks

AQA Music GCSE resources: 4. Orchestral landmarks

Also of Interest

Introduction

Students working

Orchestral landmarks (Area of study 4, AQA)

Periods of classical music history

Listen to music from the periods of Western classical music, including Baroque, Classical, Romantic and into the 20th century.
Listen to particular national styles, including Austro-German, French, British, Russian and North American

Development of the orchestra

Find out about the various instruments of the orchestra and watch players talk about landmark pieces for the their instrument.
Take an interactive tour around a modern-day orchestra, watching and listening to all the instruments.

Composing for the orchestra: orchestration

Use the SoundJunction Explorer tool to discover orchestration: you can listen to and watch what every instrument in the orchestra is doing at any point in the music.
Find out about instrumentation and orchestration in the contemporary orchestral piece Emerging Dances.
Composer David Horne describes his approach to orchestration.

Articles

Europe

Discover how different periods in European history have resulted in different musical styles, and listen to centuries of musical development.

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John Cage

Classical USA

An overview of the classical music that has emerged from the United States of America

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Playing the violin

Exploring Emerging Dances

Step inside the orchestra: hear and watch what's going on in David Horne's piece 'Emerging Dances'

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Bar 4 on score of Emerging dances

Getting the right sound from an orchestra

How does composer David Horne go about planning how to get the sounds he wants from an orchestra?

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Steve Bell playing the French horn

Instruments in Emerging Dances

Explore the ways in which composer David Horne has used the different instruments in Emerging Dances

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