Divisi Strings - when best to use ?

[Adrian Allan]

I'd like to hear from some string specialists on when it is generally best to use divisi strings.

I would have thought they sound best in cadential passages, when a really spread-out chord is needed, or do people sometimes use divisi strings to add another layer to their contrapuntal writing ?

Two more questions:

Can all the strings benefit from divisi passages, or mainly the upper strings ?

Which composers make the best use of divisi passages for me to study and learn from their example ?

[Adrian Allan]

Thanks for all your advice - great to hear from a string specialist.

[H. Archibald]

Persnoally, I don't think there is a time that is "best to use" divisi strings. I think you have to first think about the texture you want to create before making that decision. As you mentioned a really spread-out chord is a time where one might choose to use divisi in the strings. As was already said, the strings will be thinned out or "weaker" with the divisi.

I think the key issue to think about is what you are trying to accomplish and whether or not divis parts will help accomplish the task or not.

It you are using a virtual orchestra then you need not worry about the issues of divisi. But if you are thinking in terms of a traditional orchestra you will have to take into consideration that the viola, cello and bass sections is usually smaller than the violin section. Unless you have a huge Bass section, I wouldn't suggest using divisi in the Bass. Divisi in the Viola, Cello and Violin to happen enough though. Again, I think one just needs to consider timbre, texture, what needs to be accomplished and maybe even necessity.

[Fredrick zinos]

Or just tell the section that only 1/2 the players are to execute a certain passage, but thats not really divisi, thats just a reduction in force. The other thing to keep in mind is that (in real life) 1/2 the players playing P is not the same sound as all the players playing PP.

[Ann Williams]

Hold on a minute--a divisi does not necessarily make the strings any "weaker": with divisi you are expected to compensate for any "weaknesses" by either playing out more or making it less according to what the conductor tells you the composer wanted.

The first composer who comes to mind is Debussy...will have to think of a better list and get back to you.

I think of divisi strings as a way to get more parts/voices, rather than a way to divide and conquer the string section. :) But, that just comes from years of playing in orchestras; not studying it on the page, so perhaps best not to take my opinion for it..

[Roland]

As a professional violist/ violinist whose performed many years in the symphony orchestra setting, I know a bit about strings. To the contrary, divisi actually makes the sound more sonorous and richer, because you are adding extra harmonies. For instance, take the opening celli divisi section in Rossini's Wilhelm Tell Overture. If my memory is correct, it's at least 4-5 parts divided. Can anyone say that is a "weak" sound? The richness of the sonorities compensates acoustically for less players per part. Then, the conductor may also ask for players to either bring out or soften parts, as well.
This concept, in my opinoin even holds true for 20th century works, such as Penderecki's Polymorphia (hope I spelled it right) where each person is playing a different note (micro-tonal cluster divisi). The sound is full, although not necessarily sonorous (due to the harmonic instability of going against the harmonic overtone series).

[Eric Fretheim]

To me, this is an issue of color. To build a complete chord in the strings without divisi or double stops, you have to employ multiple sections. You can't have simply violins playing Amaj7, you have to pull in at least viola and cello. The tonal character is changed with the bigger instruments, even if you have them playing in the same octave as the violins. And if you want the chord at lower octaves, it isn't even an option to add the violins.

Double stops can be cumbersome. Not only must you pay very close attention to whether it is truly possible for a human hand to perform them, they limit what you can do. The rapid double stops you might hear in virtuoso pieces are likely within the ability of a professional player, but they take too much practice time to perfect, and they effect the volume and the articulation (you have twice as many strings sounding, which is like adding instruments, but your bow is putting less energy into each string.) Thus they are best left to solo pieces and left out of something you hand the player Monday to play in concert by Thursday. Long or repeating notes are fine, but since tonal quality is effected, treat this as a special effect.

Unlike double stops, divisi gives you the identical flexibility and dynamic range as unison.

On the other comment (about calling for only half the section being 'divisi'.) I guess you could mark rests for one half and notes for the other, but it is more common to instruct only half the desks to play, or only the outside players, or only x number of desks.

[Nigel Keay]

I see that this question has been treated rather in the vertical sense, however working horizontally divisi can be useful to make a difficult-to-play line easier to execute by the entire section, sometimes done with a common note overlap. Even though it might seem that only half the players are playing at any one time what they do play can be played with more weight

[Travis Fowles]

Richard Strauss is a great example to follow. Some of his tone poems have the best textures of strings; Also Sprach Zaratustra, Don Quixote, and Ein Heldenleben come to mind. There are portions that may divide the strings about twenty ways. Debussy also has sections in his Nocturnes or Images Pour Orchestre.

      When analyzing a selection from Zarathustra, Strauss starts the passage with six soli; three celli, two viole, and a violin. He then very subtly adds the concert master's inside player, the section leader of the seconds, and a fourth cello all within about two measures. A few measures after that, Strauss has a total of ten parts while using less than half of the string sections. By the time that he adds everyone else at the buildup, he has somewhere around fifteen individual lines of strings. But as the crescendo nears the climax, he gathers the parts together to make them stronger at the cadence because he adds all six horns in there. Strauss does have the organ accompanying the strings the whole time and is essentially playing a reduction of all of the parts. This is probably the best way to add some color to the strings without rending their delicate web of texture when they are so thinly divided.

     The thing with dividing the strings as much as Strauss did there, is that the more you divide them the more delicate the texture becomes. You will also notice a trend in pieces with a big orchestra that at the tutti sections or any dynamic marking above forte, all of the violins may share a single line, or the viole will join the seconds with the firsts an octave above, of course.

      To answer the other question, every string section can benefit from divisi. When you have a large orchestra (16-16-12-12-8) you can use divisi to actually make a smaller orchestra within your normal orchestra, almost like a concertino in a concerto grosso.

[Mark Nicol]

Much so Travis, as regards Richard Strauss. In Metamorphosen, for 23 string players - he really was exploring all of the sonic, linear, and vertical potentials of a virtual constant divisi setup - somewhere between a traditional chamber and symphonic ensemble. So this really ties in with what you have said as regards the detail of string writing in Thus Sprach Zarathustra.

If anyone is inclined, I would much appreciate some help with the problem of string divisi on my own massive score - Ulysses, the 1st. Movement to Symphony in Indigo. I have only prepared this work as an audio score, thus far, and have yet to detail a realistic play score - part of which entails figuring out the string densities and divisis in this very dense score.

Anyone interested can listen to the audio at the following youtube site, because it won't fit anywhere here, and I can provide a PDF or Sibelius file from there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amd6AQ_heXY&feature=plcp

Thanks and best wishes to you all,

Mark Nicol.

[Chris Burridge]

i would suggest listening to Vaughan Williams' 5th Symphony, specifically the 3rd movement "Romanza". There is prolific use of divisi strings - in fact the opening utilises them to create a nice thick texture.

[Michael Edwards]

     I'm not sure if it's too late to help, but anyone interested in divisi strings might find it interesting to study the full scores for some of Scriabin's orchestral music: particularly from the Symphony no. 3 ("The Divine Poem") onwards.  Some pages in this, and also in "The Poem of Ecstasy" and "Prometheus: The Poem of Fire", show most elaborate structures based on very fine division of strings.  Often, in certain passages, usually soft, and with a strong sense of atmosphere, he tends to have strings sections divided into 3 or 4 parts each, or sometimes even more, and some of the parts sustain notes of slowly moving harmony, while other parts have measured tremolos on pairs of notes duplicating the sustained notes.  The tremolos tend to be slow in the lower parts of the chord - like just quavers, for instance - then they gradually get faster as you go up: triplets of quavers, semiquavers, triplets of semiquavers - and so on.  Sometimes there are solo parts like a single violin playing an expressive melodic fragment combined with such passages.  Sometimes the melody or counter-melody (Scriabin uses lots of counter-melodies in a kind of counterpoint) may be taken by one of the string groups, either not divided or divided less finely - or sometimes the melody or counter-melody are taken by other instruments.

     Scriabin's music tends to follow the practice that I think most composers follow that finely-divided strings are used mainly in softer passages where rich harmony is wanted and few of the parts are of melodic or contrapuntal significance, and the parts tend to remain undivided in loud or vigorous passages where melodic continuity of the parts or strong counterpoint is more to the fore.  In those cases, if rich harmony is desired, it is entrusted to other sections of the orchestra.

     The first two symphonies include simpler examples of this sort of thing, but it's really from the 3rd Symphony that it gets very elaborate.

     Some of Szymanowski's music also uses similar techniques, as well as composers like Liadov (the particular string-dividing method I mentioned seems to be a Russian thing of the late-19th and early-20th centuries).

     Some of Schoenberg's early romantic music is also worth studying for such divisi techniques: e.g., "Transfigured Night", "Gurre-Lieder", or "Pelleas and Melisande".  Not to mention Wagner's operas, particularly the later ones - which I get the impression were the original inspiration for this whole ultra-lush style of orchestration I have been talking about.

     Some of Respighi's works are also interesting from this point of view: e.g., "Pines of Rome", "Fountains of Rome", "Roman Festivals", "Brazilian Impressions", and probably many other works too.

     Almost all the works I've mentioned can be found on the I.M.S.L.P. web site (except some Szymanowski works  - I think only the Symphony no. 4 ("Sinfonia Concertante") by him is there).  Address is http://www.imslp.org .

     I hope this helps a little.

Regards, Michael.