If your Greek’s as iffy as mine, you’ll just about be able to make out that the page title says – literally – orchestra.
In classical Greek drama the orchestra was the bit in front of the stage where the chorus stood and danced while commenting on the action – the word ‘orchestra’, so I’m told, actually means ‘dancing space’.
Several centuries later, the term had come to mean, not a chorus of voices/dancers, but a group of instrumentalists having (mostly) developed an independent existence from theatre. And which, in the Baroque era, sounded (maybe) like this…
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no. 1
in F major BWV 1046
0:00 […]
4:16 Adagio
7:55 Allegro
12:09 Menuet
13:10 Trio
14:36 Menuet (reprise)
15:10 Polonaise
16:33 Menuet (reprise)
17:06 Trio
18:06 Menuet (reprise)
… and a mere 194 years later, sounded more like this…
Strauss: An Alpine Symphony
Night 0:43
Sunrise 4:16
The climb 6:01
Entry into the forest 8:21
Hiking next to the brook 13:57
A waterfall 14:47
Apparition 15:01
In flowering meadows 15:49
On the alpine pasture 16:51
Through thicket and undergrowth on the wrong path 19:29
On the glacier 21:03
Dangerous moments 22:22
At the summit 23:54
Vision 29:43
Mists rise 33:41
The sun gradually gets obscured 34:00
Elegy 34:53
Calm before the storm 37:02
Storm and tempest, descent 40:19
Sunset 44:21
End of the day 46:56
Night 54:28
Progress?
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Pontarddulais!
The Art of Listening 