The article examines the groundbreaking work of the German flutist, oboist, educator, composer and conductor Johann Joachim Quantz (in particular, The Experience of Instructions for Playing the Transverse Flute, Berlin, 1752), which provides a theoretical understanding of important aspects of the instrumental culture of the Baroque era.
J.J. Quantz's arguments about the orchestra, formulated in the treatise, not only allow to form ideas about the types of performing groups of the Baroque period, but also reflect the aesthetics of ideas about the optimum of orchestral writing, acoustic, timbre and dramaturgical patterns of orchestral groups and textured layers. Even taking into account the personal creative priorities of the composer-performer, on the examples of concerts for solo woodwinds (two flutes and flute and oboe) from his own creative work you can get an idea of the use of small orchestral composition in the contemporary compositional and performing tradition. musician baroque instruments. It is obvious that the orchestra is interpreted as a means of accompaniment to soloists, taking on leading functions only in short episodes of introductions to individual thematic constructions, orchestral connections in caesuras of solo parts or final cadence constructions of individual parts. The main functions of the orchestra's voices are clearly divided, depending on the drama of the deployment and the ratio of the soloists' parts, accompanying them or duplicating them in the function of ripieno. The accompaniment can be interpreted as basso continuo, as a complementary chord complex of middle voices or as an interval duplication of close instruments in terms of tenure and timbre.
Orchestra in concerts of Johann Joachim Quantz in the light of the doctrines of instrumental performance of the Baroque period