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Brass will carry counterpoint against other sections or within itself, in strict imitation or freely. The thing that makes such a texture work is not the writing alone but the scoring: what separates one statement of a subject from the next is colour contrast quite as much as difference of register. Berlioz's Roman Carnival overture shows it — the canonic subject arrives first in two bassoons in unison, then in the three trombones, then in flutes and oboes in octaves, each entry unmistakable because each wears a different colour at a different height. Worth noticing too is his preparation: six bars before their proper entry, the flutes and oboes sound a slightly varied form of the theme in unison, so the ear is half-expecting them. That is a general device — you can foreshadow an imitative entry with an inexact version of it and make the real one land harder.
Roman Carnival Overture, Op. 9 — Berlioz. Canonic subject passed between bassoons, trombones, and flutes with oboes
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How a doubling sits, why a register glows, what to listen for — a single orchestration idea you can use, not a wall of theory.
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