i recall reading somewhere, (Nick Mason’s autobio maybe?) that the orchestra was a huge pain to work with and was largely half-assing it since they didnt take these rockers seriously. that there was a major lack of rehearsal, lack of studio time to get satisfactory takes of just about everything, and just generally not enough time spent on the actual composition of the piece. So it pretty much fell short at every possible phase of its creation. Their ambition clearly outpaced their abilities on that one, and they must have learned from their mistakes when it came around to Echoes (which is much more straightforward compositionally, it’s pretty much just a normal song with an awesome jam in the middle, and has no additional musicians to get in the way).