Posted by tuba fan on December 26, 1999 at 00:15:10:
In Reply to: Arnold Jacobs recordings posted by Bill on December 23, 1999 at 14:01:36:
I've gone back and listened to my V-W concerto recordings, and the Jacobs recording is really weak. Far better than the Jacobs and even better than the Fletcher is a Roger Bobo recording from the summer of 1956 at Interlochen. He had just graduated from high school and his technique, intonation and interpretation just knock the socks off the others. The excuses for the weak Jacobs recording tend to wear a little thin. Among other things, Bobo, on a CC tuba, improvises a brilliant A flat (above middle C) in the cadenza of the first movement that the others don't try. And Bobo is playing outdoors (at the old Kresge amphitheater) with a high school orchestra that can't have had more than a half hour or so of preparation. You might have a peculiar reason to seek out the Jacobs recording, but I have a tough time believing it's because you want to hear a quality rendition of the concerto.