Orchestral repertoire
89 orchestral excerpts, annotated properly.
For violin, viola, cello, and double bass, with the bow style, trouble spots, and stylistic decisions that a scanned part will never give you. 66 of them appear on standard audition lists.
- Excerpts
- 89
- Instruments
- 4
- Composers
- 34
- Audition excerpts
- 66
Choose your instrument
Violin
The excerpts that recur on violin audition lists, annotated with the bow style, the failure modes, and the stylistic decisions that decide how they land.
Viola
The viola excerpts that appear on almost every audition list, annotated with what each one is actually testing.
Cello
From baroque continuo lines to twentieth-century string writing, with the bowings, fingerings, and trouble spots a scanned part will never give you.
Double bass
The double bass excerpts that recur on audition lists, annotated with what each one tests and where they most often go wrong.
About orchestral excerpts
- What are orchestral excerpts?
- Short passages taken from standard orchestral works that expose a specific technical or musical demand. Orchestras use a fixed list of them at auditions, because a handful of well-chosen excerpts reveals a player's rhythm, intonation, sound, and style faster than a whole concerto does.
- How many excerpts are on a typical audition list?
- Usually eight to fifteen, published in advance with the audition notice alongside a concerto movement. The specific list varies by orchestra, but it is drawn from a stable pool, which is why preparing that pool is a long-term project rather than an audition-by-audition scramble.
- What do audition panels listen for?
- Rhythm first, then intonation, then sound. Panels are hiring a section player, so they are testing whether you would be easy to sit next to: steady time, pitch that locks with the section, a tone that blends, and stylistic choices that match the tradition of the piece.
- Are these excerpt pages free?
- Yes. The description, difficulty, clef, and all of the practice notes are free and need no account. The notated excerpt with recorded playback and a practice loop is part of an Arco subscription.
Practise them with a method
A free metronome, a practice guide, and five curricula for the technique underneath the excerpts.