Strange tuba choices at Berlin Phil

[Tom Holtz]

[Chuck Jackson]

Wow. This is remarkable. The guy plays in the Berlin Philharmonic. You don't. I mean really, he plays in the Berlin Philharmonic. Don't like it, buy a flipping recording. This is dumb.

Chuck"dumbfounded"Jackson

[pierso20]

Wow. This is remarkable. The guy plays in the Berlin Philharmonic. You don't. I mean really, he plays in the Berlin Philharmonic. Don't like it, buy a flipping recording. This is dumb.

Chuck"dumbfounded"Jackson

I don't think anyone is really commenting on the skill of the player. It's almost purely about the horn choice and "why"....for speculation...which for some is fun.

So, I don't think it's dumb. Just conversation, that's all.

[Nick Pierce]

-shrug-

Dang, look at that enormous....























bellybutton!

[jonesbrass]

resisting . . . urge . . . to . . .post . . . resisting . . .

Oh, crap. I guess I posted.

I like the different approaches and styles of the different orchestras. That's cool. I like it when the tuba really blends seemlessly with the other brasses providing a true brass bass sound. Of course, the american/british approach is pretty cool, too. Let's hear it for variety!!

[pierso20]

resisting . . . urge . . . to . . .post . . . resisting . . .

Oh, crap. I guess I posted.

I like the different approaches and styles of the different orchestras. That's cool. I like it when the tuba really blends seemlessly with the other brasses providing a true brass bass sound. Of course, the american/british approach is pretty cool, too. Let's hear it for variety!!

must.....resist....to.......

hows the little F?

haha........

I don't really care what Berlin does......because well.....they're all really really good....and I'm not.

[Wyvern]

The overall sound concept is a different one in Berlin ...
I want them to be Berlin. I hope others do as well. I know their sold out forever audiences back home do...

Fair enough Scooby! I would have been a little disappointed if a York-o-phone had been used (with BPO), but one would expect something like a Fafner, Rudy 5/4, or at least a M-W 25 BBb for this sort of music. If it had been Richard Strauss, or even say Mahler 6 one could say the choice of tuba was understandable as a "true to that concept" decision, but Shostakovich...

[Wyvern]

Is it a good thing that we have communication...? Absolutely! 20 years ago, unless I spent some significant time working in England, as an American I would not have a friend named Jonathan with whom I share interests such as tuba playing.

That is nice of you Scooby

Without modern communications I would still be a 'small Englander' whose knowledge of tubas did not extend beyond British 3+1 EEb's and BBb's and I would have never have made so many good tuba friends all around the world!

[Rick Denney]

In the end, the decision was probably banal, like, say, the Bb Kaiser that they might have used didn't fit in the truck, or the tuba player's car broke down and he had to take the bus, and the big tuba was too hard to carry. The Berlin musicians are still people like us, and are not above making decisions for purely non-musical reasons.

And it may not have been the tuba player's decision at all. The conductor may have decided for him. That's another Berlin tradition, from all that I've heard. Some conductors have funny ideas about what an orchestra brass section should sound like.

Certainly, a Russian orchestra would have used a large Bb tuba, and any American orchestra would likely favor a Yorkish concept. But I'll bet in the Vienna Philharmonic of old it would have been performed on a small F no matter what Shosty might have intended. Berlin is probably somewhere in between those extremes.

When I listen to older recordings of British orchestras from the time before Fletcher, or French orchestras from the time before Culbertson, I don't hear much tuba. But some of those recordings are still iconic for the particular works they performed. That said, Shostakovich's music has a lot of power in it, and I think favors the Power Sound.

How was the performance otherwise?

Rick "who used to be able to listen to orchestral music without caring much about the tuba player" Denney

[ZNC Dandy]

The Berlin Philhamronic is not particularly a sound concept I enjoyed hearing performing Shostakovich. I listened online to the concert, and wasn't as impressed as I had been previously by the work of that magnificent orchestra. Especially with the 2nd movement which I thought sounded anemic. It didn't frighten me like the first time I heard the work performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Mravinsky. I would definately have traded the Berlin Philharmonic for Rattle's former City or Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in a heartbeat. The same with their performance of Messiaen's Turangalilia However fantastic awe inspiring once in a lifetime performances can happen anytime any place or anywhere or come from any ensemble. One example is the Vienna Philharmonic playing "Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs." Hands down the best recording of the work ever. Not the ensemble you would expect to play the hell out of jazz, but damn. So dirty, so...soo...dirty.

[Wyvern]

How was the performance otherwise?

Very refined with some beautiful playing but a little too civilised for my liking in Shostakovich. I agree with 'ZNC Dandy' about the 2nd movement. I have heard performances with Russian orchestras where it was really terrifying, but I am afraid this was too much the orderly parade.

I do not think I will be that anxious to attend BPO concerts in future