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Hi all,

Not sure if this has been mentioned here or not....

If you haven't already bought Mike Roylance's CD "Teutonic Tales", do yourself a favour and go on iTunes right now and BUY IT!!

An absolutely top-notch recording of one of the greatest players out there.

Are you referring to the 5-track partial album titled "Teutonic Tales" ?

I'm not him, but I think you've got it right. I got it from Amazon rather than iTunes, and it is very impressive. At least the first track is, as is the first fifteen or so seconds of the second, which is where I am now.

Great playing on this CD. Does anyone know what horn he used to record this on?

I believe that he would have done this on his 4/4 Rudy F tuba, but that's just a guess on my part. He sounds fabulous!

Roger

Up on Spotify as well which in addition to the tracks, I highly recommend checking out:

http://www.spotify.com

Sheet music for Teutonic Tales and Three Piazzolla Tangos

The CD is Mike, indeed. And everyone SHOULD buy it. For one, he plays fantastically and two the Teutonic Tales is a great new work in the repertoire.

The Teutonic Tales is on his 6/4 Nirschl. The Tangos are on his smaller horn.

It's a fantastic recording. Highly Recommended! I believe Mike told me he recorded the Teutonic tales on a Miraphone Petruscka Piston F tuba. Hope that helps.
Chris Olka
Seattle Symphony
Seattle Opera

Mike just performed the solo+band version of 'Teutonic Tales' with one of the concert bands here at UTSA last month. Fun piece and he sounded great!

The Teutonic Tales is on his 6/4 Nirschl.

That's a hard sell. That just doesn't sound like a 6/4 Nirschl; it sounds like an F, especially down low.

Besides spectacular playing, this is a really great piece, one of the best pieces to come into the literature in years. While this is clearly a difficult piece, it is not out of the reach of many of today's advanced college level players. I expect it to become a fixture on Master's and Doctoral level recitals. Truth to tell, there are undergrad players who will be able to do a very respectable job on this.

This is not to take away from Mike's recording, which is fabulous, and will be the standard for years.

SK

skeath wrote:Besides spectacular playing, this is a really great piece, one of the best pieces to come into the literature in years. While this is clearly a difficult piece, it is not out of the reach of many of today's advanced college level players. I expect it to become a fixture on Master's and Doctoral level recitals. Truth to tell, there are undergrad players who will be able to do a very respectable job on this.

This is not to take away from Mike's recording, which is fabulous, and will be the standard for years.

SK

Your opinion is perfectly valid of course and I do like the piece, but "the best lit in years"? What do others think?

Also, the extreme registers are Mike's - not in the composed part. Should be playable by any undergrad no?

MP

Peach wrote:
Your opinion is perfectly valid of course and I do like the piece, but "the best lit in years"? What do others think?

As a music publisher, I think I will shy away from my own opinion on this but I am very curious what others like and/or feel are some of the top new pieces in our repertoire?

And a followup, what are people looking for in new literature? I am thinking of another future commissioning project and am looking for suggestions...maybe something for NERTEC 2013.

but "the best lit in years"?

With all due respect, I didn't say it was the best, but "one of the best". I happen to like the symbolism and mixed metaphors of the piece. I also like the fact that, while difficult, it is not so unbelievably difficult that only 6 people in the world can play it, which gives it more exposure.

Should be playable by any undergrad no?

Not any undergrad, but a few. More likely, grad students. I don't think it is necessary to play all three movements of it; one movement is a challenge sufficient for most potential players.

SK

Well I think we disagree a little but that's ok...

It's sure a fun piece - I'm glad Mr Smith took the time to write it for Tuba.

In looking at the score, I think most good high school players could play the second movement. The first movement is significantly harder. I think a really good player would find that challenging. The third movement is playable by most grad students. So, if only one movement is played, there is something for everyone. The challenge is to sound as good as Mike.

Mike really does sound awesome on this, as soon as I heard him play it I knew I wanted to program it. I think it is an excellent addition to the repertoire. I've programmed it twice in situations that I wasn't playing for a bunch of tuba players and had really positive responses to it both times. People loved the adventure and the frankly gorgeous second movement. Audiences, at least the ones I was playing for, I think really appreciate programmatic music to set the scene in their minds. Given the specific subject material of this piece the tuba is an excellent voice to fill in the details of that 'scene'. What better than a tuba to represent 'Thor's Hammer'? Or indeed Freya, Goddess of love and beauty? Is it cutting edge art music? Nope. But as far as I'm concerned tuba players missed out on having accessible romantic era music written for our instrument, and I welcome this addition to the 'audience friendly' category of pieces for tuba.

As far as challenge goes, I spent the majority of my time working up the third movement, but your mileage may vary.

Purchased last night and listed during my commute this morning... Great recording! Thanks for the heads up on this.

Thanks for all of the kind words on this thread. The recording project was initially intended solely to be a reference recording for lifelong friend Robert W Smith and his publishing company Barnhouse Publishing. On the session which was in Symphony Hall, I used the Miraphone Petrouschka. The Tangos were a last minute add as will still had some time left in the session and I had access to an amazing pianist, Jiun Kim along with amazing engineer, Jesse Lewis and hall to record in. Everything turned out better then expected so we decided to release a digital album. It was a blast to be a part of this project from commission to session.

Cheers,

MR