Posted by Frederick J. Young on September 29, 2001 at 21:56:44:
In Reply to: F tuba Dilemma posted by Andy Smith on September 28, 2001 at 16:02:24:
Who is the conductor? Is it Henry?
Years agi I played in many park bands with Phil Catelinet who premiered the R V Williams Tuba Concerto with the LSO. Those two-bit conductors always chewed him out for playing that little spitoon which is what they called his Boosey & Hawkes F tuba. It irritated him so much that he borrowed an old BBb sousaphone from the CMU Marching band which he played thereafter in all park band concerts. After playing for almost 60 years I can tell you that even very good conductors are influenced more by what they see than by what they hear!
In your case I would think that the CC tuba would be better especially near the end of the Fantastic Sym. then would the F tuba. However, for the triplet run up to Bb just above A440 the F tuba might be better. Phil and I had identical F tubas and I never used it in the Fantastic Symphony because it was very much out of tune beginning with the F above middle C on the piano keyboard. I always used my largest BBb tuba which played very well in tune up to and beyond the 16th open tone. Our conductor, WIlliam Steinberg never cared what equipment we used as long as we got a sound that he liked.