Zachry Taburaza

I have personally experienced playing the saxophone part in the orchestra. I played the

entire suite in the junior year of my undergrad.

From personal experience and review of the orchestral version, I now recall the timbres.

The thing I learned both in my career in the orchestras and as a composer is that strings in great

numbers have a huge body. This is especially apparent when the rest of the orchestra drops out

and the strings have a soli. The soli itself has a huge impact as dozens of instrumentalists

descend together. However, from my perspective as the saxophonist, they tend to dominate the

sound and bury the rest of the instruments. This kind of works against the mambo in my opinion,

as its context in ​West Side Story​ is much different. During the mambo, the Jets and Sharks are

having a dance-off in a high school social. Given pop music of the time, it would make more

sense to have a heavier emphasis on brass and percussion during this moment. Due to the

constraints of the orchestra, this is a little harder to do. There are probably a lot of logistical

reasons why Bernstein could not re-orchestrate to something more akin to an expanded version

of the pit orchestra.

This is where the band version excels. The focus on the winds brings a more dance-like

nature. Strings are great orchestrally, but having a large strings section gives off the “symphonic”

sound that crowds know to expect. Instead of the orchestra playing the dance, it sounds like the

strings playing transcribed parts. However, this weakness is nullified in the band version. The

expanded brass and saxophone section allows emphasizing of pop-dance style (of the era).

However, the clarinet soli that replaces the string soli is a big weakness in my opinion. In order
to have the similar effect to the strings you’d need to hire much more clarinetists and bass

clarinetists to compensate.

My surface solution to this problem is simply to hire a larger orchestra with an expanded

brass and saxophone section. Of course, that brings up the problem of paying more

instrumentalists who will actually sit down and do nothing for the majority of the time. I guess

it’s more economically viable to have a single saxophonist sit down for a quick solo and be

buried for the rest of the time.