Numbers
The size of a string section may be expressed with a formula of the type (for example) 10-10-8-10-6, designating the number of first violins, second violins, violas, cellos, and basses. The numbers can vary widely; thus in a large orchestra they might be 14-14-12-12-10; the band orchestra in Darius Milhaud's La création du monde is 1-1-0-1-1. Mozart's masses and offertories written for the Salzburg cathedral routinely dispensed with violas, as did his dances. Leonard Bernstein also left out the violas in his West Side Story. Famous works without violins include the Second Serenade of Brahms and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms, as well as Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem and Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten.
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