When Sibelius said, “The orchestra has no pedal,” he meant: if you want the sound in the orchestra to ring the way it does on the piano, you will have to add sustaining tones or choirs to the scoring. When Wagner said, “The secret of good orchestral sound is sustained tone,” he had the same general problem in mind.
Unsustained, fragmented or “pointillistic” sound tends to “dry out” and apparently to lack a “floor” or “foundation.” It is true that the addition of too much sustaining sound tends to
obscure delicacy of design, but there is a way to achieve foundational feeling without adding actual sustaining material. This can be done through the use of some simple continuous motion pattern: e.g.,
If there is some stabilizing motion of this kind in the score, the rest of the music may be very “fragmentary” or “pointillistic,” and it will still seem satisfyingly unified. Without this thread of motion there might be a feeling of breathlessness and uncertainty.
The line of motion may be in any pitch locale, but should remain thin and delicate (a unit of one or two voices only).
Respighi makes effective use of this principle in The Fountains of Rome.
This principle is still another representation of contrast in action — fragmentariness contrasted to stability and steadiness (as shown opposite).
Without the stabilizing action of the violas, the sound would be very fragmentary.
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