Music 251A Chamber Music Profile No. 4: Tutti Passages

Each profile will highlight a specific problem of orchestration for chamber ensemble. This profile contains reference to three extended passages in which everyone in the ensemble is playing, the simplest and clearest definition of a tutti. There are a number of criteria that further refine the type of tutti: the focus of the foreground in the totality of musical space, the spacing of the component parts in the whole vs. the spacing and doubling of a specific part relative to the others, the relative independence of any given part (counterpoint or heterophony).

Since a tutti passage involves everyone who is playng in a piece, such passages must, by definition, be relatively brief and occur at important structural nodal points. A tutti passage could be cadential, summing up a chain of developments, or it could be the culmination of intense activity to maximum density (a saturation of the pitch field).

Fluctuation in pitch density would define the amount of total pitch/harmonic activity in a passage.