Why do Euphonium players use so much dang vibrato?

[Dennis K.]

With strings, though, the reason for vibrato is not to cover poor intonation. It has to do with the vibrancy of the sound. Back in grad school, I dated an exceptionally cute violist, who demonstraded this - she plucked a note, with no vibrato and it kind of fell off the instrument and died before it hit the floor. then she did the same, but with vibrato, and the note carried and seemed much more alive. She repeated the same demo with bowed notes as well.

Additionally, strings with no vibrato creates a very distinctive sound that may not be particularly acceptable in many situations. To that effect, I would reference everyone to the recording of Barber's Adagio by the Kronos quartet. That recording has the most striking use of vibrato I have ever heard by string players.

So, back to brass & Euph...
Vibrato is generally used by brass players for color as opposed to technical reaons (like aforementionedcute violist). With trombone, players are taught to blow right down the center of the instrument and adjust pitch with thte slide. Euphs must necesarrily accomodate variations in pitch because of the nature of valves, therefore, a euph will have a substantially different blow and approach from a trombone. Euph players learn to accomodate intonation, not by covering it up with vibrato, but by learning the intracaies of their horn, and practice.
At which point, vibrato is a tool, not the whole project, and the only real issue is the player.

[GC]

Yes, the real point of vibrato is to add life to a player's or singer's sound. The covering of slightly-off intonation is a sometimes useful side effect, but is rarely the real point of its use. And as bloke says, the best violin sound comes from those who are spot-on.

There are examples at the other end, though. It's hard to beat the sheer beauty of choral groups who can achieve near-perfect intonation with no vibrato (think decades of St. Olaf's choirs).

It's what you get used to, too. If you listen to a lot of older jazz recordings, you'll hear non-stop vibrato that can set your teeth on edge; it was accepted way back when, but slmost nobody would play like that now. Some French classical players use clarinet and French horn vibrato, which is essentially a no-no in most other places. Cello sounds blah and colorless with out vibrato; with it, it can be one of the most gorgeous sounds in the world. For the rest of us, the point is to use it judiciously and not overdo it.

A litmus test for your tastes might be the Adagio for Strings orchestral version. The current common interpretation seems to mirror the old Thomas Schippers and NY Phil recording: no vibrato and extremely slow tempo. However, I've heard great recordings by Ormandy and Stokowsky that used strong vibrato and a faster tempo. I much prefer the latter, but I've seen people actually get angry at hearing it done with vibrato. Since this was originally a section of a Barber string quartet, I've listened to several quartet recordings. Ones that use the slow-tempo no vibe mode sound dull and stunted, but the ones that use good vibrato are more full of life. But overall, it's still a matter of taste, and tastes change over time.

[Dennis K.]

That was with Ms. Jeanrenaud.
The recording is amazing. Kronos is one of my favorite groups of all time. It is thrilling that they don't rely on music by dead, European, white guys. Nor do they rest on established convention. I wonder what the state of the arts would be if all groups from orchestras to soloists took such a progressive stand?