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I believe Willie Kurath did or does work with the Willson Instrument Company. Your Kurath F is pretty close to identical to the current Willson F. Those early Kurath F's play very well. Hope that helps.

Matt

There was at one point a Kurath-Perantucci CC tuba.

I would suggest browsing old T.U.B.A. Journals for advertisements and you'll see the brand Kurath come up. As for the time being it is my knowledge that Kurath tubas ARE (for a lack of a better word) Willson tubas, or very similar.

I've got a rebranded Kurath... I need a 4th valve though...

I used to own a Kurath F. Bought it from Custom in late 1993 when I was at ASU with Mr. P. Sold it several years later for financial reasons and have regretted selling it ever since.

I've got no new input regarding Kurath outside of what's already been said; made by Willie Kurath, now the Willson brand, great tuba, blah, blah, blah. I felt comfortable playing ANYTHING on that horn, except for the low, loud excerpts (Fountains, etc). Anything else I could nail without even really trying. Beautiful, open low register, free blowing upper, meat and potatos range was dead-on; only issue I had was water collection in some of the slides, but that was solved easily enough by pulling the slide and rotating the horn to empty the water. Absolutely solid construction, too: I once accidentally dropped a PT-64 on the bell from a height of about 6ft and the bell suffered a dent of only ~1/8" in diameter.

They're great horns. Next time I'm in the market for a horn, I'm going to do my best to buy a used Kurath or new Willson F.

SR

Dan Perantoni had a Kurath F in his stable for a while around 1990, we all took a spin on it while it was in his studio. Biggest %*$&#^!! F tuba I've ever seen. Played great, sounded exactly like a CC tuba. Been a long time since I've seen one.

bloke wrote:

Tom Holtz wrote:Dan Perantoni had a Kurath F in his stable for a while around 1990, we all took a spin on it while it was in his studio. Biggest %*$&#^!! F tuba I've ever seen. Played great, sounded exactly like a CC tuba. Been a long time since I've seen one.

I believe I saw that very tuba. My kid went to Interlochen Academy c. 1997-98, and the "big" tuba kid there (the one who was in the Academy orchestra) was trying it out in the basement of the cafeteria-connected dorm (Thor Johnson Hall). It was engraved "Perantucci", and (I believe the kid claimed) that D.P. was offering it for sale. The kid was quite impressed by the fact that D.P. owned it, but the thing had a very strange scale indeed. That student didn't know me from Adam (and to this day I do not know his name) but I played it for him with a tuner turned on (for him to watch) and encouraged him to continue his quest.

These may be two distinctly different instruments being discussed.

I had opportunity to play that exact horn (in other words, the very same horn Dan Perantoni had to which Mr Holtz refers) in a variety of settings over quite a period of time -- everything from solo, to quintet, to orchestra. Intonation was pretty much spot on -- once the first valve slide was shortened (a self-done modification performed by Mr Perantoni with a hack saw!) I don't recall the Perantucci engraving at all, but on that point I am not completely sure.

I'm guessing that by six or seven (or eight) years later that might have been a different instrument altogether from the instrument Bloke refers to. Only a thought, FWIW.

Hello everyone...I would like to know about the story from the perantucci horns made by kurath and Sanders...it's true that Robert Tucci and Dan perantoni gave their design to these companies...? And how were them ? A teacher said me that both supervised each horn before entering on the market...

Kurath was rename Willson after the son of Willie took the company in charge. Will's son = Willson.

bloke wrote:those pesky Swiss...always copying stuff...such as oversized American C tubas, and complicated English baritone-tuba-type instruments"

I can't speak for the English baritone-tuba type instruments (as I admittedly know next to nothing of them and their history, but at least, as you say, they waited till the patent expired?), but wasn't their "oversized C tuba" a copy of something that was no longer commercially available at the time?