Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: use of F tubas in Europe


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Posted by Rick Denney on June 18, 2003 at 01:09:34:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: use of F tubas in Europe posted by PersonfromoutsideU.S on June 17, 2003 at 23:46:18:

Thank you for your illuminating post. It seems to me that your perceptions of U.S. tuba players are as over-generalized as ours are of European practice. Both are likely outdated, and there seems to have been more cross-pollenation than we realize. There certainly seems to be more specialization on both sides of the pond.

The repertoire you list as being played on Bb and C tubas in Europe would mostly all be played on C tubas in the U.S. But most U.S. orchestral tuba pros would use an F or Eb where you suggest Europeans would. The variations you mention based on orchestral sound, conductor preferences, the other brass players, repertoire, and the acoustics of the hall are here, too, and there are many U.S. tubists who do not use 6/4 instruments because of those reasons. There is probably less influence of traditions within specific orchestras here--each new conductor seems to bring his own tradition from somewhere else rather than being selected on his compatibility with the existing tradition which is probably more often the case in Europe.

But the CC's used by U.S. tubists in orchestras that don't mind a big sound for big works will often be a 6/4 CC--one that can keep up with Bb instruments in depth and breadth. Your list of European tubists included a number of these instruments, so again I'm not sure there is as much difference as you think. I doubt that anyone in front of the tuba player can tell by listening whether the tuba player is playing a Bb or a CC instrument, if they are the same sort. From 15 feet away, you couldn't tell the difference between Fletcher's CC Holton and my BBb Holton of similar vintage by looking, and if one person played both, I'd bet the sound would be nearly the same out front.

But there are tuba players in the U.S., I'm sure, who do everything on CC, just as you list some in Europe and elsewhere who do everything on BBb or Eb. They are a diminishing minority in professional orchestras, I suspect.

You may not like Jacobs's performance of the RVW, but I'd bet you find more to complain about with that old Catelinet recording. We would probably agree, however, that the two premiere recordings of the work are Fletcher and Lind, different though their approaches were. A key factor in my thinking is that they both used their daily instruments while Jacobs used a specialty instrument.

Rick "who thinks the American concept is no more homogeneous than the European concept" Denney


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