Posted by Rick Denney on December 12, 2000 at 16:53:29:
In Reply to: Re: Is there instrument bias? posted by Tom Fox on December 12, 2000 at 15:45:38:
On the other hand, how many years would an adjudicator have to judge these contests before hearing all the tuba concerti that exist?
I'd bet they know what the Vaughan Williams sounds like!
And if any high-school kid can play the Gregson at all convincingly, then he will give that Elgar-playing cellist a high mark to try to attain. The tuba concerti are all pretty difficult, because the instruments they are written for have varied widely, and because the musical language of modern composers seems more demanding than the old standards in more long-standing instruments. The virtuoso pieces of centuries past are war-horses for modern students to learn on, but we tuba players have few of those old war-horses to explore. I was pretty good in high school (though, obviously, no virtuoso), and there's no way I could have touched any concerto for tuba. I'm not talking the inability to play it well, I could not have hacked my way through it at all. Now, I might be able to hack my way through the first two movements of the Vaughan Williams, and maybe parts of the Gregson. But a movement of a Mozart Horn Concerto would be less of a technical challenge for a good modern horn player.
Of course, I keep underestimated the technical abilities of modern school kids.
Others have mentioned biases based on the literature more than the playing of the contestants. That works against tuba players, too. All tuba concerti are still under copyright protection, and parts have to be rented. No going to Luck's or Kalmus for our stuff.
This bias is also apparent in professional circles. The only time I ever heard the Vaughan Williams played in San Antonio, where I had season tickets for ten years, was when Mike Sanders played it... at a Pops concert. Every other instrument was represented in the regular classical series during that period--even percussion.
Rick "Surprised to find the RVW on the Texas solo contest list" Denney