Music has been called the universal language. This study has been based on the premise that it is built on top of one. Music forms a common medium through which emotions can be expressed and knowledge can be obtain my means other than the spoken word. Mathematics is also considered a universal language for the similar reasons. Musical expression is based on a common language that musicians around the world can understand and use. All participants in the process of producing the grand tones of the symphony orchestra can read and understand the same music--allowing them to collaborate and perform on a might higher level than otherwise would be possible.

 

Not only were compromises necessary in the theory and construction of the music itself to bring the various types of instruments together, but the instruments themselves required substantial modification and compromise in order to meet the uncompromising demands of symphonic performance.

 

If the movement to integrate the symphony orchestra had failed, we would live in a world in which musical expression could not be conveyed by full combinations of instruments--including blends of strings, brasses, woodwinds, and percussion. We could listen to some group arrangements, but without the full facility of all of the instruments. Examples of this are the eighteenth century symphonies of Mozart and Haydn in which the trumpet plays single note accents in parallel with the tympani--effectively reducing that brilliant instrument to a percussion instrument and limiting the tone and sonority of the orchestra overall.

 

 

How wonderful for us that our predecessors solved this problem--allowing the great composers to freely create and the rest of us to freely enjoy. Of course, the success of the full orchestra improved prospects for small ensembles, brass bands--and even other genre, such as jazz and rock and roll. Truly the musical integrators of the past did well.