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The standard for brass quintet seems to be 2 trumpets, 1 French horn, 1 trombone, 1 tuba (at least in the U.S.). Personally, I prefer the sound of euphonium to trombone in quintet or adding a euph to make a sextet.

Some groups substitute a bass trombone for a tuba, a sound that I find disturbing. Occasionally we see tenor horns or cornets (more of a British thing, I guess).

Does anyone have preferences for alternate instrumentation in quintet and strong reasons for it?

I have a Berlin Brass Quintet LP with rotary bass trumpet instead of French horn.

When the results are all in, I bet the French horn is substituted out in the most combinations, but that's OK, they get to play in woodwind quintet.

Hi Hi-
We use 2 trumpets, a fluegelhorn in place of the French Horn, a Trombone, and a Tuba--just seems to be a nice sound and works fine.
mark

I thought it was screwy at first, but I am startin to appreciate the idea of a bass (or maybe even a contrabass?) trombone playing the bass role in a quintet. I do not at all like it when the four higher voices are all concentrated together with nice, blended sounds and then the tuba player's sound is just spread all over the hall and there seems to be no blend of timbre at all. I'd like to give it a hear, I would.

Many years ago, before the standard brass quintet was popular, brass sextets existed: 1 trumpet, 1 cornet, 1 French horn, 1 trombone, 1 euphonium, and 1 tuba. I think such a sextet offers more tone color possibilities than the standard quintet.

Allen

Some of the Ewald quintets sound really nice with euphonium instead of trombone.
The euph and tuba pass a line back and forth, and it sounds like a blend instead of a contrast.

The quintet I am currently playing with uses 2 cornets, F horn, Euph, and tuba (I use the F). We're playing some ewald at our upcoming concert in fact.

The Jackson wrote:I thought it was screwy at first, but I am startin to appreciate the idea of a bass (or maybe even a contrabass?) trombone playing the bass role in a quintet. I do not at all like it when the four higher voices are all concentrated together with nice, blended sounds and then the tuba player's sound is just spread all over the hall and there seems to be no blend of timbre at all. I'd like to give it a hear, I would.

Bass trombone is plenty low enough, and fits your theory better than the contrabass trombone. I just started with bass trombone this spring, and from this very casual perspective it works great on some amateur brass quintet stuff, and maybe even at its best in the contrabass range where the tuba can be kind of indistinct. But the tuba can contribute more foundation, and more "drive" I would say, in a piece that needs that.

tubainty wrote:The quintet I am currently playing with uses 2 cornets, F horn, Euph, and tuba (I use the F). We're playing some ewald at our upcoming concert in fact.

Let us know how this is received; my quintet (of standard instrumentation) is considering attempting a 'period' performance of Ewald I with cornets, alto horn, euphonium, and me on a little 3-valve Eb tuba, and I have no idea what to expect.

My brass quintet in San Diego years ago used a Euph in place of the French horn due largely to the fact it was hard to find a good F-horn player. The guy playing euphonium was a phenomenal trombone/bass trombone player I played with in a college jazz band and I really liked the sound and blend. He didn't read the horn parts so I got pretty good at transposing!

Donn wrote:I just started with bass trombone this spring, and from this very casual perspective it works great on some amateur brass quintet stuff, and maybe even at its best in the contrabass range where the tuba can be kind of indistinct.

Now that is 'heresy' on a tuba forum! Is a trombone ever better than a tuba?

I personally like the use of a flugel horn, instead of second trumpet - but then I prefer tonal contrast to blending

Art Hovey wrote:Some of the Ewald quintets sound really nice with euphonium instead of trombone.

And the original instrumentation of the Ewald's was.............

A trombone is better than a tuba when they morph into a cimbasso.

The 2111 set up is pretty standard. Most composers write for this complement. There are some cases (like the Renaisance and Baroque repertoire) that the 212 is perfectly appropriate, and in my opinion MOST of this rep sounds better with the trombone on bottom. I have played in a quintet that used a small bore tenor trombone to play the horn parts, while I played the trombone parts on euph. While this was an odd compromise at the time, with the personnel involved, it worked just fine. The American Brass Quintet (with the monster, Rojak at the helm) sounds awesome with a bass bone on the bottom, BUT all of the music that they play and commission is intended to use the bass bone. The question I would ask is: What is the COMPOSER'S (arrangers/transcriber's) intent? Is it not our job to realize the intent of the composer?

GREAT discussion!

According to the cover on the score here from 1912:

http://imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/3 ... 5310cc.pdf" target="_blank

it was written for "Zwei Kornette in B, Althorn in Es, Tenorhorn oder Bariton in B und Tuba"

My quintet uses the cornets and the trombonist switches to euphonium but we haven't tried the alto horn thing yet.

Roger

To me, bass trombone instead of tuba in quintet leaves a horrible hole in the bottom register that shouldn't be there, especially in large venues or dead rooms.

Neptune wrote: Now that is 'heresy' on a tuba forum! Is a trombone ever better than a tuba?

Note the real irony of it, though - better at its own game, if you reckon that the tuba's supreme talent is very low notes. But especially in this context, where I think you'd have to wonder why the bass part in a brass quintet is going down there in the first place, and your tuba might very well be a bass tuba, I can imagine that the thin but clear bass trombone pedal range might serve better than the tuba's lush, indistinct rumblings. Back up in the mid range, in the power band for a conical horn, the tuba becomes more compelling all around.

Maybe, but a good low-register tuba sound should not be indistinct.

I've always liked a bit of variation/experimentation/creativity in quintet, with making great music as the goal.

2 highest parts: sometimes Bb trumpets, sometimes C, Eb, D, whatever; sometimes cornets and flugels and no trumpet;
Alto part: french horn or alto horn;
Trombone: euph or baritone instead of trombone sometimes;
Tuba: bass or contrabass, euph or bass trombone sometimes.

I like variety. So much of it depends on finding players with the skill and comfort level to be able to do that sort of thing. Certain pieces seem to beg for a blended, homogeneous sound, others require very distinct voices. To each his or her own.

Excellent point.