: Number of Violinists in Orchestra Please help me regarding this classic song sung by Rod Stewart with the Orchestra. Will the song music make a difference if the number of violinists are increased or decreased? If yes, what

Vote Up Vote Down   0 Reactions

Login to give Reaction!

There are two aspects to this: how many voices you have, and how many instruments play unison per voice. Convention is to have the violins split up in two voices (plus the similar violas, and cellos and basses), but each voice can be split up further (called “divisi”), which of course means less per unison-note.
The number of voices is mostly a compositional question, i.e. what harmonical / counterpuntal complexity you want. The number of instruments per voice affects more rather subtly the sound timbre.
The difference between 10 and 15 violins is marginal. 5 will sound notably different: obviously a bit less gradiose, more intimate, but if the players are good it will still be a good smooth and silky string sound. Even 3 can still have that effect; only when you reduce it to 2 that doesn't quite work any more (then, the small pitch deviations become a noticeable phasing / beat, rather than everything blending smoothly together), and a single violin just sounds completely different from an ensemble.