The orchestra and its instruments — A Reader’s Guide

Lully’s Orchestra as a Model of Discipline

Singleton devotes considerable space to Lully’s ensemble, the “Twenty-Four Violins of the King,” drawing on contemporary accounts to reconstruct its sound and discipline. She quotes Georges Muffat, who admired the “perfect discipline and strict time,” the “clean attack,” and the famous “first stroke of the bow.” The author emphasizes that Lully’s orchestra was not merely loud but capable of delicacy: his scores include markings such as “Play softly—almost without touching the notes” and “Do not take off the sordini until you are told to.” These details, drawn from primary sources, give the reader a concrete sense of Lully’s authorial control over dynamics and texture. Singleton also notes that Lully divided his orchestra into groups that “have conversations with one another,” a technique that “puts lots of light into the picture.” This observation about antiphonal writing is one of several moments where the author moves beyond mere description to analyze compositional craft.

The Violin’s Evolution Through Makers and Players

The violin chapter traces the instrument’s development from its early forms to the masterpieces of Gasparo di Salò and Maggini, whose instruments are illustrated. Singleton’s prose here is factual but not dry; she notes the “peculiar and archaic shape of the bow” in the van Eyck painting of St. Cecilia, and describes a “Little Savoyard in Paris with vielle, or hurdy-gurdy” from an old print. These visual references ground the text in material culture. The author’s choice to include such images—all “photographed especially for this work… from rare volumes and old prints”—reflects a deliberate editorial decision to let period artifacts speak. She does not claim that the violin’s form evolved linearly; instead, she presents evidence of variety, such as the “violin without ‘bouts’ and with crescent-shaped sound-holes” in the Ghent Altarpiece. This attention to visual detail complements the written descriptions, offering the reader multiple entry points into the instrument’s history.

Orchestration as Authorial Choice: Woodwinds, Brass, and Percussion

Singleton’s treatment of the woodwind, brass, and percussion families reveals her interest in how composers deploy instruments for expressive effect. She notes that Lully used flutes “usually straight flutes and flutes à bec, though sometimes ‘transverse,’ or ‘German,’” and that they could “play in unison with other instruments” or “form separate ‘concerts.’” The trumpets, she writes, “had a magnificent rôle,” playing alone in three or five parts with drums. More unexpectedly, Lully introduced “bag-pipes, guitars and hunting-horns (in La Princesse d’Élide); the charcoal-burner’s whistle (in Acis); and… the noise of anvils (in Isis).” These examples, drawn from specific works, show Singleton’s method: she does not generalize about orchestration but instead points to concrete instances of instrumental color. The author’s own voice emerges in her parenthetical comparison to Wagner’s Siegfried, suggesting that Lully’s sound-world anticipated later developments. This comparative gesture is rare in the text, making it all the more striking when it appears.

The Conductor as Interpreter and Taskmaster

The chapter on the conductor extends the book’s central metaphor: the orchestra as an instrument played by the conductor. Singleton supports this by detailing Lully’s rehearsal practices, including his insistence that instrumentalists “never dared to embellish their parts,” since he “would not allow any more liberties from them than he would from the singers.” This emphasis on textual fidelity—the conductor as enforcer of the composer’s intentions—is a recurring theme. Singleton also cites Robert Eitner’s description of Lully’s rhythm as “incisive and expressive,” and notes that “strangers were always struck” by the orchestra’s ensemble. The author’s choice to include multiple contemporary voices (Muffat, Eitner, and unnamed “others”) creates a layered portrait of Lully’s authority. Yet Singleton does not romanticize him: she reports that he “more than once broke a violin on the back of a man who was not playing to his taste,” a detail that humanizes the legend without endorsing the violence. This balance between admiration and critical distance characterizes the book’s tone throughout.

Singleton’s book rewards readers who attend to its specific evidence: the quoted markings on Lully’s scores, the descriptions of instrument shapes from paintings, and the anecdotes of rehearsal-room discipline. Rather than a general history, it offers a series of focused investigations into how orchestral practice was shaped by individual choices—of makers, players, and especially conductors. For those interested in the craft behind the sound, this work provides a valuable period perspective, grounded in sources that are often more vivid than the textbook summaries that followed.

Reading about Lully’s disciplined ensemble, I remembered sitting in a drafty hall as a child, watching the conductor’s baton rise—and how The Orchestra and Its Instruments made me feel that patient authority. Later, Musical Myths and Facts, Volume 2 (of 2) — Themes and Context stirred the same quiet wonder: both books trace how sound becomes meaning, how silence shapes a note before it’s played.