Score

A score is a book containing the music for all instruments required for a piece, written together. In a score page, each line is on top of another one and belongs to a different instrument.

So a score is quite complicated to read: the conductor has to read it both horizontally, like any other writing, to follow the development of musical phrases, and vertically to see what all instruments do simultaneously at a given time and give the players indications about when to start (very important!) and how to play.

Yet, it is very fascinating. In his memoirs Hector Belioz tells about the impression he got when he first saw an orchestra score with twenty-four lines on it. He remembers that

"suddenly became aware of the multitude of instrumental and vocal combinations that lay open to an ingenious hand"

and that from that moment he was in a state of ever-increasing musical ferment.

This is the first page of the score of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra.