Re: Re: Re: Re: Vaughan Williams


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TubeNet BBS ] [ FAQ ]

Posted by Rick Denney on November 21, 2002 at 10:51:45:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Vaughan Williams posted by Steve Marcus on November 21, 2002 at 00:14:29:

As Christian says, this is a Barlow tuba, with five uncompensated valves, in F. Apparently it was not the instrument used by Catelinet in the premiere of the Vaughan Williams. But it was the standard British orchestral instrument before WWII (just as the French C tuba was the standard orchestral instrument in France at the same time), and lingered in that application up until the 60's.

Apparently it was a joint development between Besson (that is, Besson when it was in France) and Harry Barlow, a well known British tuba player around the turn of the last century.

The proportions of this instrument are quite small, even by F tuba standards, particularly in the bell stack. The closest modern instrument is the Saxhorn Basse from Courtois, which has five uncompensated valves in the same configuration, but which is pitched like a euphonium. And it is also more closely related to the French C tuba than to the compensated bass tubas used later in Britain.

Christian makes a good point that the transition away from these instruments was fueled by a turnover in orchestral tuba players in Great Britain, but Cliff Bevan also suggests that it was fueled by Boosey and Hawkes refusal to produce more of these instruments after WWII.

Bevan is quite interested in the history of these instruments, and writes about them extensively in the second edition of The Tuba Family.

I suspect that these instruments required an even more specialized approach than the small German rotary F tubas that were their contemporaries on the Continent.

Rick "who would love to try one out, but who probably would not want to own one" Denney


Follow Ups: