Ophicleide trio

[Dean E]

First I've ever heard an ophicleide played. Pretty good technique.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUS-NJ8nSnI&NR=1

[djwesp]

This is not to discredit the instrument being played....


HOWEVER,


These guys could make any instrument sound beautiful.

[Mark]

Excellent. I have wanted one of these for many years. But my money has to go on things that will earn money back for me and the ophicleide just does not get a lot of club dates in these parts.

If you wanted to attend Curtis, I think they should accept you if all you owned was an ophicleide. But, as you know, they are elitists.

[Alex C]

I didn't hear any technique, it was all lyrical but the result was quite listenable. It was funny watching thumb pads go down to change notes.

Somehow I can picture the ophecleidist in an orchestra making a mistake and, just as the conductor stops to upbraid him, he leans down and starts blowing on a pad. Saxophonists do this, I don't know why but I think it's like when trumpet players miss a note, they look at the valve casing like something's wrong with the horn if they missed a note.

Did I read something into the title of the YouTube post, was this "Summit Ophecleid."

Finally.... I could hear the lack of focus in the low register which was the downfall of the oph. The instrument gave no resonance to the lower pitches. The upper register was quite nice but then, the players were terrific.

Thanks for the link!

[Dean E]

. . . . Did I read something into the title of the YouTube post, was this "Summit Ophecleid."

Finally.... I could hear the lack of focus in the low register which was the downfall of the oph. The instrument gave no resonance to the lower pitches. The upper register was quite nice but then, the players were terrific.

Thanks for the link!

You're welcome.

I wonder how much "lack of focus" is due to the microphone setup, Youtube compression, and cheapo computer speakers? I'd like to get the same players on a CD and play it through a better sound system.

The Youtube comments:
Ophicleide players Nick Byrne (Sydney Symphony, Sydney, Australia), Erhard Schwartz (Berlin, German), Douglas Yeo (Boston Symphony Orchestra, Boston, USA) and Mark Evans (Deutsche Oper, Berlin, Germany), gathered on September 3, 2007 at the Musikinstrumenten-Museum Berlin for the first ophicleide summit. This video shows (left to right) Byrne, Schwartz and Yeo in a reading of "Das treue deutsche Herz" arr. Rob. Müller. The instruments used are by Halarie/Sudre, Paris c. 1875 (Bryne), Eppelsheim, Munich 2007 (Schwartz) and Roehn, Paris c. 1855 (Yeo). The video was taken by Mark Evans.

[KarlMarx]

Ekhard Scwartz's site
http://www.ophicleide.de/Neue_Ophicleid ... leide.html
looks smaller in the bell throat than the old ones>
Mike

The explanation maybe may be found in the text of the said page of

http://www.ophicleide.de/Neue_Ophicleid ... leide.html

Here in a handmade attempt of a translation:

New ophicleide developed

After plans by Benedikt Eppelsheim a new ophicleide was built 2002/2003 by instrument makers from Vogtland. It combines the typical sound of the historical instruments and an easy playability.

The ophicleide is the bass instrument of the family of keyed brasses and was first built in 1817.. This predecessor of tuba and saxophone was employed through the end of the 19th century as brass bass in the late romantic music (Berlioz, Mendelssohn, and Wagner among others). Through this period the ophicleide only was improved by the augmentation of the number of keys from 9 to 12. The factors crucial for the intonation like the bore profile and the exact placement of the keys were, however, never optimized. Hence the ophicleide was hard to master, and this fact along with the too limited volume of sound for open air performances would have been the main reasons for the extinction of this instrument so full of character.

In a very dedicated way the Vogtlandian instrument makers realized the plans of Benedikt Eppelsheim, in which the main emphasizes were on the exact key placement, on the even expansion of the bore, and on the avoidance of cylindrical portions of the bore like seen in tuning slides.

Thus an easily played ophicleide with a superb intonation is available for the performance of music from the late romantic era.

(The paragraph on the custom case has not been translated).

Carolus Dolmetscherianus