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Outside of church ensembles which were small in the [[Baroque period (music)|Baroque era]] and focused on choral groups and the organ, orchestras originated on the estates of the [[nobility]], with household servants providing an evenings entertainment after dinner. These ensembles typically were not much larger than 20 or 21 performers. A competition arose among the nobility for the quality of performance, and the richer noblemen even hired court composers to write music for them. [[Franz Joseph Haydn]] was one such composer. [[Gluck]] was another. Some of the richer noblemen - kings and emperors - if they were music lovers offered their private orchestras for public hearing or accompaniment in [[operetta]]s in state-sponsored theaters.
Outside of church ensembles which were small in the [[Baroque period (music)|Baroque era]] and focused on choral groups and the organ, orchestras originated on the estates of the [[nobility]], with household servants providing an evenings entertainment after dinner. These ensembles typically were not much larger than 20 or 21 performers. A competition arose among the nobility for the quality of performance, and the richer noblemen even hired court composers to write music for them. [[Franz Joseph Haydn]] was one such composer. [[Gluck]] was another. Some of the richer noblemen - kings and emperors - if they were music lovers offered their private orchestras for public hearing or accompaniment in [[operetta]]s in state-sponsored theaters.
These public hearings required more volume, so the private orchestra was doubled in size from a standard of 22 performers to 44 by Beethoven's time, when the demands of the [[French Revolution]] required more access by the public to the privileges of heretofore only accorded to the [[monarchy]].
==The Instruments of the Orchestra==
==The Instruments of the Orchestra==