Sound and Orchestration as a unifying Element of "romantic" Thinking between Symphony and Symphonic Poetry

By investigating the connection between sound and romantic thinking, the text discusses how orchestration was used in various genres in the first half of the 19thcentury. Various compositional approaches were fine-tuned so that romantically-influenced ideas could be implemented through an actor-like nature of sound. This phenomenon can be found in opera, in Lieder, in piano transcriptions and ultimately in symphonic genres (symphony, concert overture, symphonic poem). After a short depiction of well-known factors like instrumental or structural compositional developments, the text describes music's potential in evoking emotions and enabling emotional insight into the innermost part of another human being. Well-planned orchestration in symphonic music is not only based on the use of special instruments, on an amalgamating treatment of wind, brass and string sections, on soloistic structures, or on an increasing use of new registers. Rather, orchestration also functions dramaturgically by giving the orchestra an additional voice.