Posted by Carole Nowicke on June 14, 2003 at 09:29:51:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Who's Copying Whom? (Long) posted by js on June 14, 2003 at 00:13:49:
Mr. Torchinsky was born 5 years later than Mr. Jacobs. Donatelli could have put on a few pounds in that time, but the man does not look morbidly obese in any photo, and there are certainly men of considerably more girth playing horns designed to be as close to that York as could be. I can't answer why Mr. Jacobs said it was because Donatelli was so fat that he sold the horn--maybe it was amusing to him? A slim young man himself, Donatelli would have seemed bigger, or it was just funny--"How fat was Donatelli--? "He was sooo fat..."
I'm not playing "pick your favorite tuba artist" here but wondering about what, in fact, were the factors in selling this instrument. Of course, many people I've interviewed have said they wished they hadn't sold their Alex CC, or their Connstellation, or their 184...
I asked Mr. Torchinsky specificially about this in our oral history interview, and he said:
Nowicke: How big of a person was Mr. Donatelli?
Torchinsky: Like this [gestures] this way, he was big, broad-chested.
Nowicke: Tall?
Torchinsky: Short. He was probably about the size I am now. About 5'8".
Nowicke: So, he was a little, round guy.
Torchinsky: A little round guy.
Nowicke: I?d heard the story that he couldn?t get close enough to the York to play it, and that?s how he happened to sell it to Mr. Jacobs.
Torchinsky: No, no, no.
Nowicke: So, that?s apocryphal.
Torchinsky: No, that?s not true at all.
Nowicke: Totally not true.
Torchinsky: Mr. Ormandy hated Donatelli. That, I can?t tell you, because I wasn?t actually there, but the story I got from old-timers in the orchestra--it was a trick that many conductors used to pull, but they don?t do it anymore. They would mark--let?s use hypothetically a note, B?. The piece had a B? in it and the conductor would purposely cross out the flat and put in a natural or something--or in the case of nothing, a sharp. He?d then say, ?Tuba, no, that?s the wrong note, you should play, blah, blah, blah, blah.?
Well, evidently he pulled that on Donatelli, and he saw whatever it was, was wrong, and he played the right note. Ormandy said, ?Mr. Donatelli, no, no, no, you should play,? whatever it was, and Donatelli said, ?No, Mr. Ormandy, I played the right note, somebody marked the wrong note in here.? Well, that was the dumbest thing he could have done, from that day on, he was dirt. Ormandy wanted him out of there. He really did his all to get him out there. One of the things that he was on, was about a tuba that he had--you?re talking about the big York.
Nowicke: The big York.
Torchinsky: The bell shown too much! Ormandy made him dull the damn thing. All sorts of crazy-- told him the horn was too big--
Nowicke: Oh, that?s how it wound up being satin silver?
Torchinsky: He told him it was too big, all kinds of things. So that?s when he sold it to Arnold for $175.
Nowicke: So he was not too big to play the horn.
Torchinsky: No, no, no, no!
Nowicke: I?ve seen that in print!
Torchinsky: You?ve seen that in print? You?ll see lots of things in print. Now if you?d said that to me about Bill Bell, I could almost believe it, because he was big.
Nowicke: I never met him.
Torchinsky: He was big--look at that picture, see, I look like a midget sitting next to him.
Nowicke: In the picture of the Sousa Band he?s there with Jack Richardson, so everybody?s going to look small.
Torchinsky: They?re all big.