more delightfully and more frequently than in any other art, because
of the rôle which repetition of parts plays in musical composition.

[Sidenote: _Familiar instruments._]

[Sidenote: _The instrumental choirs._]

The argument is as valid in the study of musical forms as in the study
of the orchestra, but it is the latter that is our particular business
in this chapter. Everybody listening to an orchestral concert
recognizes the physical forms of the violins, flutes, cornets, and big
drum; but even of these familiar instruments the voices are not always
recognized. As for the rest of the harmonious fraternity, few give
heed to them, even while enjoying the music which they produce; yet
with a few words of direction anybody can study the instruments of the
band at an orchestral concert. Let him first recognize the fact that
to the mind of a composer an orchestra always presents itself as a
combination of four groups of instruments--choirs, let us call them,
with unwilling apology to the lexicographers. These choirs are: first,
the viols of four sorts--violins, violas, violoncellos, and
double-basses, spoken of collectively as the "string quartet;" second,
the wind instruments of wood (the "wood-winds" in the musician's
jargon)--flutes, oboes, clarinets, and bassoons; third, the wind
instruments of brass (the "brass")--trumpets, horns, trombones, and
bass tuba. In all of these subdivisions there are numerous variations
which need not detain us now. A further subdivision might be made in
each with reference to the harmony voices (showing an analogy with the
four voices of a vocal choir--soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass);
but to go into this might make the exposition confusing. The fourth
"choir" (here the apology to the lexicographers must be repeated with