Instruments of the Orchestra / Various

My intensions and expectations in purchasing this set were:(a) Obtain the ability to identify instruments by their sounds.(b) The opportunity to perceive various sounds & colors of different musical instruments.(c)Compare instruments sounds one against the other.(d) Exposure to new instruments and to those one rarely hears.Expectation were only partly met for the following reasons:1-The Woodwind and the Brass instruments CDs are unfriendly organized, which may cause difficulties for the beginner listener. In its FIRST demonstration an instrument should appear as solo, preferably in a concerto which not only isolate the instrument but also enables to emphasize the sound's versatility produced by a virtuoso player. Solo demonstration makes it easier to follow ,study and remember the instruments sound for future references. Unfortunately some of the woodwinds (CD# 3), and brasses (CD # 4) are demonstrated with orchestral background which overshadows the demonstrated instrument's sound, i.e.: CD 3 tracks 3/20 oboe, 3/26 cor anglais, 3/66 bassoon also in CD 4: 4/22 trombone and 4/26 trombone B flat . If one is unfamiliar with the demonstrated sound, it's a difficult and frustrating task to "dig out" the relevant sound from the orchestral background. The tasks' becomes more difficult when dominant instruments play simultaneously with the demonstrated; as in 3/28 cor anglais and French horn, and in 3/45 French horn, saxophone and tuba. Go and guess "who is who?" With better presentation this difficulty could have been avoided.2-Performers are not the top of the line neither are some choices of the musical pieces. A vast educational project such as this set, calls for the best performers and the best musical compositions; yet the prominent violinist virtuoso Perlman and the outstanding violin concertos of Beethoven and Mendelssohn are not included. It caused me to wonder. Could it be that the financial considerations left behind the educational purpose and this set serves as a mean for advertizing Naxos CDs?After all the source of the musical pieces chosen are solely from Naxos company.3- The booklet is informative, but has a main drawback: the CD's number is not mentioned on the tracking list pages. Hence if one whish to compare sounds it becomes a chore to brows the tracking list back and forth in order to find the relevant instrument. Listing the CD's number ,on top or bottom of the track list pages, would have eliminated the search chore. Though imperfect this set is educational, the music is enjoyable, there are some treats as presentation of uncommon musical instruments in the percussion and interlopers CDs ( 5 & 6).ADDENDUM on 10/4/2013 :If you are serious and wish to learn more, search at You Tube AS A SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE CD-SET, it's packed with live concerts which are VIEW FREE ONLINE, violin concertos; which were missed in the above CD-set, as: Itzhak Perelman Beethoven Violin Concerto, alternatively Isik Stern with Orechestre National de France conducted by abbado. BUT please start with Ravel's "bolero" which introduces symphony orchestra instruments in close-ups as they start to play in succession. The best video I found is performance by Wiener Philharmoniker - Maurice Ravel -Bolero-Gustavo Dudamel. Another goody is "Scheherazade" by Rimsky-Korsakov preformed by Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest conductor Claus Peter Flor , a good follow-up by video camera shots of instruments and solo playing close ups. While watching the video, have diagrams/pictures & names of the instruments handy. Sometimes the closed-ups are too close and you see just a part of the instrument, which makes it difficult to identify, especially the woodwinds family, concentrate on the mouthpiece and bottom part of instrument for easier recognition. Watching those video enables one to learn faster not just the sound but also a glimpse to the techniques of tone productions.

I've listened to classical music for years and am interested in composition. I bought this CD set to learn how an orchestra and its instruments work. I thought the CDs would be a nice but boring lecture. They aren't! Not only are they FUN but they are informative as well. I learned a huge amount from each CD and couldn't wait to listen to the next one.The narrator and writer is a great speaker and holds your attention well. He is definitely knowledgeable. He provides musical examples for each point he makes, so you get to "hear" what he just talked about. I'd say the CDs are about 65% music and 35% narration. You'll learn about the range of instruments, some history, different ways to play them, how they sound, and how they are used in the orchestra. This CD set was a great learning experience and is sold at such a low price!I recommend this CD for those who want to learn about classical music and those who know about it but are interested in learning more about the inner workings of an orchestra. You'll learn much useful information. For instance, the Rite of Spring (with that eerie start) is written for bassoon! I never knew a bassoon could sound like that but now I do.The one complaint I have is the last CD. This deals with the orchestra. I wanted more of a tour of how the orchestra has been used through history up to the present. Instead, it was a tour of how different groups of instruments sound. I thought it could have been better. The other 6 CDs are excellent.

This boxed set of CD's with booklet achieved all I had hoped that it would. There are good samples of individual instruments and well done commentary on each. The only drawback was that some of the samples were too brief and could have been longer, hoiwever I guess this fits in with time constraints of the medium. It has given me a lot of clues as to future purchases of CD's for listening to individual instruments. Altogeth a satisfactory purchase and a welcome addition to my collection.

I just listen to music, don't play an instrument or read music. This set greatly helped me know just WHAT was making the sounds I heard, and what the various instruments are capable of doing and the range they have. I still can't distinguish a violin from a viola very well---but I'm getting better. Overall I'm quite satisfied and plan to see if my grandchildren are interested.

Very well done. Great examples for all instruments, amusing but accurate commentary. I have bought 3 so far for friends and one for me.

I love it

Whether you're a music novice or pro, "The instruments of the Orchestra" is a very worthwhile purchase. The 7 CDs, with a total of 8 hours, are expertly narrated by Jeremy Siepmann. He's a great speaker, very much like the late Leonard Bernstein was. Mr. Siepmann takes you on an unforgetable musical journey covering the origins and use of the various orchestral instruments throughout musical history. The balance between his narration and a wealth of musical examples, which range from snippets to entire movements, is superb. The comprehensive enclosed booklet is excellent and faithfully follows the 7 CDs in content. Even with my 40+ years of music training I still learned new things from this wonderful collection. Considering the excellence of the content, and a cost that translates to about $5 per disc, this collection is a great value. Grab it, you won't regret that you did. Five solid stars!

I have thorgouhly enjoyed getting an overview of all these instruments of the orchestra. Every primary school should have this and all music teachers.The booklet is very informative and well written and packed with insights - historical profiles of the major Instruments, the greatest Instrument makers, instrumental typecasting, the art of orchestration and transcription, and an Orchestral Seating Plan. The music is well chosen and well played. The seven CDs are as follows 1 Violin 2 Lower Strings 3 Woodwind 4 Brass 5 Percussion 6 Interlopers 7 The Orchestra. The last CD intelligently builds the orchestra up by addition of instruments from strings to the biggest 'romantic' orchestra. There is a plethora of excellent examples. There are the usual examples from Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven etc. But there are plenty of unusual effects from the 20th century including chains, typewriter, wind machine and many others. Of course the line had to be drawn somewhere as to what to leave out. Personally I would like to have heard a few more predecessors of the modern orchestra including viols and lute and theorbo etc. What is here already is an extremely valuable collection and worth repeated listening.

This is an amazing and very interesting introduction of all the orchestral instruments, I've learned so much. Also there samples are very well chosen, got new some beautiful not so well-known music. Very highly recommended to anybody!

My son bought this set for me to introduce me to the orchestra and I often listen again to the CDs on long journeys, there is so much information and the musical pieces for illustration are a treat, to be able to focus on particular instruments as you listen.

Strongly recomended. The best of it's kind.