| | |
2 Bassoons I. II. | 2 Bassoons I. II. | 3 Bassoons I. II. III. |
| | |
| 1 Double bassoon (III). | 1 Double bassoon (IV). |
---------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------+

The formation of the first class may be altered by the permanent
addition of a piccolo part. Sometimes a composer writes for two
piccolos or two Eng. horns etc. without increasing the original number
of players required (in three's or four's).

_Note I._ Composers using the first class in the course of a
big work (oratorio, opera, symphony, etc.) may introduce
special instruments, called _extras_, for a long or short
period of time; each of these instruments involves an extra
player not required throughout the entire work. Meyerbeer
was fond of doing this, but other composers, Glinka for
example, refrain from increasing the number of performers by
employing _extras_ (Eng. horn part in _Rousslan_). Wagner
uses all three classes in the above table (in pair's:
_Tannhaeuser_--in three's: _Tristan_--in four's: _The Ring_).

_Note II._ _Mlada_ is the only work of mine involving
formation by four's. _Ivan the Terrible_, _Sadko_, _The
Legend of Tsar Saltan_, _The Legend of the Invisible City of
Kitesh_ and _The Golden Cockerel_ all belong to the second
class, and in my other works, wood-wind in pair's is used
with a varying number of extras. _The Christmas Night_, with
its two oboes, and two bassoons, three flutes and three
clarinets, forms an intermediate class.

Considering the instruments it comprises, the string group offers a
fair variety of colour, and contrast in compass, but this diversity of
range and timbre is subtle and not easily discerned. In the wood-wind
department, however, the difference in register and quality of flutes,
oboes, clarinets and bassoons is striking to a degree. As a rule,
wood-wind instruments are less flexible than strings; they lack the
vitality and power, and are less capable of different shade of
expression.

In each wind instrument I have defined the _scope of greatest
expression_, that is to say the range in which the instrument is best
qualified to achieve the various grades of tone, (_forte_, _piano_,
_cresc._, _dim._, _sforzando_