How many voices do violins usually play in modern orchestral music

Question

I've been into arranging and composing for orchestral music for a few years now, however, my music is usually fully computer-rendered (ewql), so I don't have any practical limits of how many instruments I use.

Well I'm trying to not be completely off, however, in a few of my compisitions I use a lot of violin voices (like, melody w/ octave + 2 voices harmony + 2 voices staccato for about 8 bars. meanwhile, two voices violas and one voice cello/cbs). Now a few of my pieces are actually to be performed every once in a while, however not by an overkill orchestra with like 100 violinists.

So, my question is, how many voices for orchestral instruments, especially violins, are "okay"? How many players should there be for each voice? I haven't been able to find any good resources about this yet.

Answer 1

In a real orchestra? It varies. Maybe 10 first violins, 10 second violins, 10 violas, 8 cellos, 6 double basses. Maybe 14, 14, 12, 12, 10. Mozart and Haydn had smaller orchestras so you may see 3, 3, 3, 2, 1, although they sound OK with a larger or smaller group. Not as many bass instruments are needed to balance the treble instruments. For late romantic compositions with 3 flutes and piccolo and 8 horns and so forth, you'll need more strings to balance the winds and brass.

Almost always there are 5 parts: 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, cellos, basses. But sometimes a part will be "divisi", for instance violas divided into 2 parts. (In a program note you may see something like "The theme is then heard in the divided violas" leading to the joke "What's a divided viola?") At one point in the Schumann piano concerto the cellos are divided into 3, and in Debussy's La Mer the cellos get divided into I don't remember how may. At least 8.

As for what's "okay": it depends on who's paying for the orchestra. Do you have the budget and space for 100 violins, each with a different part? They're professionals; put it in front of them and they'll play it.

I don't have a reference; I'm just going by the live concerts I've seen, and I've seen a lot of them. Occasionally I've seen the same Beethoven symphony played by two groups in the same week, one with 12 string players and one with 50.

Answer 2

In the Classical era, dividing into two voices was fairly common (especially in violas but also 1st or 2nd violins and sometimes 'cellos). That would potentially give you 4 violin voices. If you include double stopping, you have more voices. (Because of triple-stopping, it's not uncommon to need nine or more string parts when doing computer realizations of the last couple of bars of a Mozart symphony). But bear in mind, given the small size of orchestras, it was not always possible to have, say, divisi 'cellos while still having more than one 'cello playing each voice.

As orchestra sizes grew, the ability to divide into 2 or even 3 became easier. I know of a number of romantic-era works that have the 'cellos divided into 3. I doubt this would be a problem for most orchestras nowadays except for chamber orchestras.

There are 20th century works that have much greater number of voices. There are some Ligeti pieces, for example, that achieve tonal clusters and micropolyphony by having 10+ distinct violin parts.

Another thing to bear in mind when considering playability is whether you want a solo violin or an ensemble violin sound. If each voice is to have the ensemble sound, you probably need 3x as many violins in the orchestra as voices. Obviously if you want the solo sound, you only needs as many violins as voices.

Answer 3

If your pieces are being performed, it's just as important to consider skill level of the musicians as it is to think about the number of players.

At the low end of the spectrum, you've got a community orchestra who welcomes anyone. There are a wide range of skill levels this kind of group. The less skilled players may not have the abilities or confidence to play a part significantly different from their group leaders. So if you have 20 violins in a community orchestra (a generous estimate), it may be that 4 of them can handle anything you throw at them, 10 of them are good enough if they've got the section leader to help them out on the tricky bits, and the last 6 struggle to keep up on anything. In a group like that, you can easily handle two distinct parts with occasional further divisions, but going further means you're exposing the group's weaknesses too clearly.

On the other hand, if you've got a professional orchestra, you can assume that every violin player can hold their own, although some will be better than others. At this point, your music will be playable, but if you've got more than just violins playing, it will be hard for them to be heard over everyone else because you've split 20 violins into 6 parts, so there's not enough doubling for good volume.

Answer 4

I believe the numbers vary from orchestra to orchestra but according to this resource:

THE ORCHESTRA - Violin

the average is around thirty.