The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra: The Importance of Composition

Now for something a bit different…

The following piece of classical music is a good reminder of the great importance of composition. It shows just how many components can harmoniously come together to create a masterpiece and helps to visualize the level of sophistication that a design can reach.

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The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Henry Purcell, Op. 34, composition for orchestra by British composer Benjamin Britten, Directed by Leonard Bernstein.

The origins of the piece are very interesting. In 1944 the Butler Education Act was created to place music in schools through Britain. But due to a shortage of trained music teachers, educational films were created and used in part to teach the students. The first and most well known of these films is “Instruments of the Orchestra” for which Benjamin Britten wrote his Variations on a Theme of the 17th century English Composer Henry Purcell “The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”.

Britten adapted the Rondeau in Purcell’s Abdelazar to clearly the different timbres of the different sections of the orchestra. Providing a list of the order of sections thereby allowing people first entering into the world of music to hear and differentiate the different sections and instruments in a quick, concise, and clever way.

For the full experience check out the the full video HERE