Posted by Mike Sherline on October 29, 2001 at 03:03:03:
Zach,
The other answers you got are right - you're unison w/bass tbn for 4 bars at the beginning & 4 at the end of the 2nd mvt - a little brass chorale. I heard that at the 1st rehearsal the bass tbn player couldn't put out the indicated forte on the low Db, so Dvorak added tuba just in those bars. About 15 yrs ago I heard the Ft Worth Symphony play it, and Don Little was playing all the way through. It sounded great! Turns out he doubled the bass tbn - usually 8vb. So when we (Tucson Symphony) did it a short time later, I asked the conductor & bass tbn player if we could try it, they said OK, so I got a copy of the part and did it in rehearsal; the conductor liked it, so we've done it that way since - the last time on a recent concert pair. Its not the "right" thing to do - musically it would probably make more sense to just leave the tuba out completely - but its so much better than sitting through the 1st, 3rd, 4th (and most of the 2nd) mvts, and it does sound good to have that extra octave on the bottom in those heroic brass parts. In most cases you're also in unison with the basses. If you could persuade your conductor and bass tbn player to let you try this, and make it sound good, it would make the trip to NY a lot more worthwile, though it would probably be a great experience in any case. I guess I was lucky - when my univ orch played there, we did Mahler's 2nd, and I also got to play extra with the National there in a Messian piece - many yrs ago!