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I have been considering if to use my Eb, or CC tuba for playing Elgar Symphony no.1 and would be interested in others experiences and views.

I have tried playing through the part with both and can see pros and cons of either. The symphony includes some leaps above the staff which would be more secure on the Eb and fast passages where the small tuba would provide more clarity, but at the same time I feel other passages would sound better with the extra depth of the big CC.

Obviously, an F tuba was used in British orchestras at the time of its composition, but I am not sure if that is necessarily a reason to mean it should be played today on a bass tuba as the trombones were then pea-shooters and are now wide bore and anyway Elgar gave no indication of the type of tuba he really wanted.

The concert will be in a cathedral, with the usual acoustics, so that is another consideration.

When faced with equipment choices, my personal priorities are
A. Clarity and accuracy, then
B. Deep sound

I would hazard that if you are playing in a very live environment, you may also want take approach.

I agree with the others on general principles. In rooms that are more live than a concert hall, I like smaller tubas with more core and clarity. In that case, the room will add the depth. What you don't want is woofy mud.

But I would also like to address something you said. I think if you laid your Besson down next to an "orchestral F" of Elgar's day, you would find that it had already undergone the expected size inflation. The modern 981/2 is as much bigger than a Barlow F as a .550-bore tenor trombone is bigger than a century-old pea shooter. Thus, I don't think you need to worry that you aren't keeping up with the increased instrument size of your colleagues.

Rick "who generally performs in dead school auditoriums" Denney

Thanks for the feedback. I was swaying towards using the Eb, so you have helped to confirm that conclusion!

Jonathan "who enjoys playing Elgar"

Neptune wrote:I have been considering if to use my Eb, or CC tuba for playing Elgar Symphony no.1 and would be interested in others experiences and views.

I have tried playing through the part with both and can see pros and cons of either. The symphony includes some leaps above the staff which would be more secure on the Eb and fast passages where the small tuba would provide more clarity, but at the same time I feel other passages would sound better with the extra depth of the big CC.

Obviously, an F tuba was used in British orchestras at the time of its composition, but I am not sure if that is necessarily a reason to mean it should be played today on a bass tuba as the trombones were then pea-shooters and are now wide bore and anyway Elgar gave no indication of the type of tuba he really wanted.

The concert will be in a cathedral, with the usual acoustics, so that is another consideration.

I have a photograph somewhere I will dig out with Elgar , the trombone section and tuba from a concert at the three Choirs festival in the early 1920's the tuba used is a prototype 19 inch bell besson type Eb , there is a similer pic in one of the trevor herbert Brass history books ( published by OUP)..I would use an Eb for the performance ( just for a clear authentic sound)

NickJones wrote:I have a photograph somewhere I will dig out with Elgar , the trombone section and tuba from a concert at the three Choirs festival in the early 1920's the tuba used is a prototype 19 inch bell besson type Eb , there is a similer pic in one of the trevor herbert Brass history books ( published by OUP)..I would use an Eb for the performance ( just for a clear authentic sound)

I have seen that picture in the Trevor Herbert book and assume it is a large F as surely the Eb was not used professionally in British orchestras before the 1960's?

I have tried out using my Eb at rehearsal for Elgar 1 and it worked just fine, although I must confess that I missed the tonal depth of the big CC (I think that sound can be rather addictive!) in the dry acoustics of the practice hall.