As a follow-up to Don Cox's history on orchestra seating (990424 MMD),
some MMD members might be interested to know that "the old seating"
-- with first violins to the audience's left and second violins to
the right (and the cellos where the second violins "should be", next
to the first violins) -- is the standard seating today for the
Cleveland Orchestra.

About five years ago, Music Director Christoph von Dohnanyi reset the
orchestra this way.  There was more than a little griping by the players
(the two violin sections surely cannot hear each other as well when
they are an average of about 30 feet apart), but Dohnanyi perseveres
to this day.

The orchestra just fine set this way; there's no evidence of timing
problems between sections, and as Don mentioned, it is much easier when
the stage is set this way to hear the interplay composers sometimes
create between the high string sections.

I'm not sure just any orchestra could sound so well with this seating,
though.  It's the incredible strength of the Cleveland strings that
allows this significant additional challenge to the players to remain
entirely transparent to the audience.  Just another example of why this
ensemble is so highly regarded worldwide.

You can hear weekly concerts by the Cleveland Orchestra on any of more
than 500 public radio stations around the country.

Rich Marschner, WCLV(FM) Cleveland