Re: Favorite books of tunes


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

Posted by Klaus on October 02, 2001 at 21:55:02:

In Reply to: Favorite books of tunes posted by Sean Chisham on October 02, 2001 at 17:00:45:


A few remarks first:

I had written a quite thorough reply, when a stray finger made the Explorer window disappear. I hope to conceal the induced grumpiness.

I have a great sense for playing just for fun, but I always think in potential repertory. In the case of a contrabass tuba that creates certain problems. No matter which reading abilities one has in taking solo material one, two, or even three octaves down performance with piano or any sort of ensemble is excluded, because the solo line often goes below the bass line. Thereby creating wrong inversions of the chords. A private correspondent sent me his MIDI version of a Rossini baritone aria set for contrabass tuba. Wonderful piece, but I had to tell that the cornerstone harmonic cadenzas had been ruined. Hence the most obvious vocal solos to go for are the baroque bass solos, where the soloist actually carries the bass line. One famous sample is the trumpet-bass duet from Handel's Messiah (The trumpet shall sound(?)).

I am no soloists myself, but a player/teacher/instructor/arranger/conductor (retired in almost all capacities) always thinking in ensembles, when I meet musicians that inspire me.

Yet I will open up with some of the solos I have explored, mostly on bass bone and euph.

Mozarts bassoon concerto is a gem. It might hold up in a recital situation even if it is played an octave down. A good pianist should be able to modify his left hand actions according to the problems sketched out above these lines.

Vivaldi has made a lot of bassoon concerts. Not all of them worthwhile. Fellow bandsmen of you or Farah might give some more precise hints.

I have looked into a cello concerto of Haydn, but it was far too string specific in its tools of expression.

And now the ensemble man comes to the front:

Farah publicly on this board has expressed, that she liked to play duets with you. Horn players usually have great transposing skills. Baroque music is not particularly picky about instrumentation and choice of octave. All adding up to a potential wealth of music to choose from.

Baroque solo sonatas with continuo accompaniament are very interesting with just the solo and the bass line played. If one wants to take them to a recital level the addition of a keyboardist would be relevant, be it a pianist, an organist, or even a synthesized harpsichordist, not to speak of my personal favourites: harpists, guitarists, and lute/theorbe players.

An obvious place to start would be with the 4 major recorder sonatas of Handel in C major, A major (tricky bass line in the Allegro), G minor, and F (?) major. Plus those of his Fitzwilliam collection.

In the baroque the flute traverso and the recorder repertory was the same. With the small difference of a minor third. They read from the same music, but the recordists read it in a a French treble clef, which happened to share the lines and the spaces with the common bass clef. So even I can "read" this old clef trick.

The good thing about the alto/treble recorder repertory is that has a 2 octave F to F range with a few excursions higher up. Quite commensurable with the best projecting range of the horn. And the transposition is the same as for the horn parts of the 2nd movement of Beethovens 5th. Not the worst one to be asked for.

Telemann also has 4 such sonatas. Loillet has 6. The ones in A-minor and G-major being the best ones. Parcham has a very good one in G major.

Then there is all of the French and Italian repertory, some of which has been claimed by the piccolo trumpet players. Which should keep no others away from it.

Is it common knowledge, that the baroque clarino trumpet playing skills detoriated so fastly, that when Mozart wanted to stage a performance of "Messiah", he had to rewrite the instrumentation? Partly by adding clarinets. Very remarkably by allocating the trumpet solo of the above mentioned duet to the horn. Carrying a bit of irony, as the German texts is: "Die Posaune erschallt" (The Trombone shall sound). An instrument which is not involved.

So if Farah combines the violin introduction with the trumpet part read an octave down you have got yorselves a Washingtonian rendition of a Viennese version of a famous Handel bass aria.

If you are into Renaissance music Orlando di Lasso wrote some musically challenging Biciniae. Might involve some clef reading.

And if you can play jazz walking lines from the chords, any of the plentitude of fake books will open up a quite interesting sphere.

Happy hunting. After all you live in an area, where the library facilities should be just about the best ones on this planet.

Klaus


Follow Ups: