Surprising Tuba Part in Louis Spohr's 10th Symphony

[Triggerfish]

I've seen nobody else post about this particular work and thought I would share it. I discovered this piece by accident the other day after seeing a CD of Spohr symphonies in the music library where I work and knowing how his music is popular with clarinetist I thought I would give his symphonies a listen, and to my surprise I heard tuba, and lots of it. This piece is also an interesting example of what tuba in orchestra may have sounded like if it existed during Mozart's or Beethoven's time.

The interesting thing about this work is it was written only about 10-15 years after the invention of the tuba I believe. Yet the tuba plays a pretty significant role in the music not playing only bass notes below the trombones, but actually having a number of independent moments and doubling with the bass/celli more often than with trombones. It makes me think how the early years were often the best for orchestral tuba, with other works from Berlioz, Mendelsohn, or even Bruckner, and how dramatically the perception of orchestral tuba has changed. In the earlier years of bass tuba, composers I think saw a smaller more flexible instrument with comparable range to the cello rather than the double bass like with C/B flat tuba. Not that the low contrabass writing isn't satisfying but it would be nice to have had a little more variety in modern tuba writing other than just octave lower than the bass trombone.

Go give this piece a listen! It's on Spotify
Spohr also included tuba in his 9th Symphony

[arpthark]

I am interested in this, but I can't find a score available for Symphony 10 anywhere.

[Triggerfish]

I am interested in this, but I can't find a score available for Symphony 10 anywhere.

Unfortunately, Spohr did not publish the work in his lifetime. His wife held on to the original autographed score and parts after his death, and then from there the parts were preserved in Prussian State Library, and then later published by the library. My guess is the score is still under copyright. I believe the original parts are now held in a museum in Germany.

[arpthark]

The score for Symphony 9 is on IMSLP, as is the tuba part alone, and looking at it is pretty interesting. Seems like it would work very well on F tuba.