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I heard the Pittsburgh Symphony perform the piece this weekend. Right in the middle of the French Horn section was, I could have sworn, was a baritone horn. I was pretty far back and couldn't 100% verify that it wasn't a tenor horn but the bell looked too broad to be a tenor horn.

Answer appreciated from someone more in the know than me.

Elimia - still in total awe of 'The Rite of Spring' after hearing it hundreds of times.

Most likely it was the Wagner tuba(s) called for in the score. I believe some scores call for up to 4 Wagner tubas. Chicago Civic used 4 Wagner tubas on Rite of Spring last season. Here in Chicago we are lucky to have an opera which carries Wagner tubas for the Ring Cycle. However, imagine trying to tune(while playing in your upper tesitura) to four players playing a rarely played instrument that has a lot of of natural intonation issues... :shock:

james

Bass trumpet...?

Ah...

Had I actually read the post I would have understood what he meant...

I'm just a dumbass sometimes.

after playing the rite of spring on tour this summer about 87689 times... i can tell you that the horn players were probably playing wagner tubas. they are insane, or you heard the tubas playing in their upper register really well. i was playing both tuba parts on tour, and it went off without a hitch! if you tell me exactrly where in the piece u are talking about, like what section, i can tell you, but i suggest getting to a music store and picking up a rite of spring score, i promise it will come in handy in the future.. take a look!

They were wagner tubas. The rite of spring asks for 2 (played by horn 7 & 8 ) in the "Cortège du Sage" (and before, starting rehearsal nr. 64)
It's a bit weird because the score asks for 2 tenor tubas, and places them together with the bass tubas. It's clear however that they are meant to be Wagner tubas because suddenly there are only 6 horns, and everybody else is playing.It's a great moment in the score, and the part is great fun to play

A wagner tuba is basically a german style tenor tuba, adapted to be used with a french horn mouthpiece. The resulting compromise is very difficult to play in tune, by the way. They also exist in F, basically a tiny version of a regular F tuba. Most of the time they are used in 2 pairs, horn 5 & 6 doubling on tenor in Bb and 7 & 8 on bass in F.

I remember playing a Bruckner symphony with a student orchetra with a bunch of borrowed wt's where we had to play scales together to find some sort of common pitch center.

Right, should have realized they were Wagner Tubas. Thanks for everybody's time on filling me in.