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If you can find a better Bydlo I'd like to hear it!

Tuba solo: Alessandro Fossi
Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx6Eo6liyCg

I'm interested in the F tuba he is playing, is it a Firebird?

99.9% sure it's a PT-16.

Right, it's a PT or B&S of some sort, the 5th valve tubing should have been a clue to me.

What about the playing though? Great control and his upper register sings!

Yes, the conductor forgot to shave and the camera seems fixated on the tuba players left hand, but other than that this Bydlo is great.

You are right about the playing; it is truly beautiful. My issue is that it might be a bit too pretty for the context of the music. Fossi sounds, to my ear, more like a V-12 BMW than an ox cart. I think this performance, the whole movement not just the solo, captures the spirit better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7sFMhqPhhM" target="_blank" target="_blank

Alessandro Fossi's playing is by far better IMHO. His phrasing and intonation is spot on!

Being the well-known pedant that I am, I will offer the following thought:

Proclaiming that something is the "best ever" implies that one has intimate knowledge of every other instance of that thing in order to make such a judgment. I'm sure no one posting in the forum would have to audacity to claim they know enough about every other performance of this movement to make such a judgment, even allowing for the fact the such a judgment is inherently subjective in nature.

In other words, any claim that this is the "best ever" really has no merit and/or significance at all.

Best ever? No, and I'm certainly a fan of Alessandro's Bydlo. Ever is a strong word.

The tune is not the oxcart...it's the song of the man driving the oxcart. Fossi is too pretty? Idontthinkso, Tim.

While Mr. Fossi's playing was quite lovely, shouldn't "best Bydlo" be a topic for the euphers?

Todd S. Malicoate wrote: In other words, any claim that this is the "best ever" really has no merit and/or significance at all.

+1

PMeuph wrote:

Todd S. Malicoate wrote: In other words, any claim that this is the "best ever" really has no merit and/or significance at all.

+1

+2. I don't believe in "best ever" of anything you can't measure with a stick or a pendulum.

But I also agree that it is very enjoyably played!

cjk wrote:While Mr. Fossi's playing was quite lovely, shouldn't "best Bydlo" be a topic for the euphers?

Not if we're discussing music.

Best ever? Maybe. Best I've ever heard? Definitely.

MikeS wrote:You are right about the playing; it is truly beautiful. My issue is that it might be a bit too pretty for the context of the music. Fossi sounds, to my ear, more like a V-12 BMW than an ox cart. I think this performance, the whole movement not just the solo, captures the spirit better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7sFMhqPhhM" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

You make an astute observation about Fossi's version possibly being too beautiful. While I do like the Russian Orchestra's version as a whole a little more, I didn't particularly find the tenor tuba solo compelling. He may have been following the dynamic markings to the letter and I haven't seen the music for this in over 20 years but there were a few seemingly overdone crescendo's that fell away in a strange abrupt manner that I felt detracted from the continuity of the solo.

Good point about any musical performance being the "best ever" . Fossi played very very well in his performance though, and I do like it, but it's perhaps now in my mind not as ineffable as I thought of it last week.

That was stunningly easy. Had I listened to it blindfolded I would have thought it was a euphonium (the ultimate compliment ) I can see how it might lean a bit on the "pretty" side for some, but the ease of his tone made me forget about everything else. Inspiring playing.

Todd S. Malicoate wrote:Being the well-known pedant that I am, I will offer the following thought:

Proclaiming that something is the "best ever" implies that one has intimate knowledge of every other instance of that thing in order to make such a judgment. I'm sure no one posting in the forum would have to audacity to claim they know enough about every other performance of this movement to make such a judgment, even allowing for the fact the such a judgment is inherently subjective in nature.

In other words, any claim that this is the "best ever" really has no merit and/or significance at all.

Why do you think this is the driver singing? I see no driver in the picture. I see people being hanged and the terrible specter of a horrid treatment of Polish Patriots by the Russian Military. I hear this piece as a Dumka, a lament at the treatment of the Poles as Cattle by a conquering power. I certainly do not see anything pretty about it. The word Bydlo means about what the word kine means in English. It is true of the cart's power source as it is of the treatment of the patriots. I see its mood much as I see the Slaves' Chorus in Nabucco.

For what it's worth if opinions are worth anything at all.

Lovely performance!

The assertion that Mussorgsky's subject for Bydlo was a sketch of a military execution puts a darker spin on the interpretation, but has anyone found another reference (popular or academic)--besides Sergei Korchmin (http://korschmin.com/portfolio-view/vik ... rettyPhoto" target="_blank" target="_blank) to support this claim? Any musicologists among us?

bill wrote:Why do you think this is the driver singing?

Perhaps because:

In a letter of Musorgsky's to [Vladimir] Stassov [a mutual friend of Musorgsky and Hartmann], written in June, 1874, just before the "Pictures" were completed, the composer calls this movement Sandomirzsko Bydlo, ie, "Cattle at Sandomir", and adds that the picture represents a wagon, "but the wagon is not inscribed on the music; that is purely between us".

-- "Victor Hartmann and Modeste Musorgsky", by Alfred Frankenstein, The Musical Quarterly, July, 1939.

Even Korschmin, the primary, if not only, proponent of the military execution idea, accepts the authenticity of the letter, and in fact, quotes it both in translation and in the original Russian, on his website.

Further in the article cited above, you may read:

However, if you disagree, here is an example of commonly accepted imagery in this case by V. Van Gogh. According to A. Frankenstein[8] opinion Bydlo is a Polish word meaning “cattle”. Hartmann’s watercolor, which he had apparently executed during a trip through Poland, showed a typical peasant wagon with enormous wooden wheels, drawn by oxen. Again however, I believe that Mussorgsky has turned this into more of a social commentary on how Russians treated Poles in 1874 Czarist Russia. At a time this was a dangerous notion to express, hence the …

on which I based my interpretation of Bydlo.

Further, Ox carts' drivers seldom mount the vehicle to drive them, in my experience (and in the experience of my Mother's family, Bohemian farmers). Control over an ox cart is usually had by having a pole attached to a nose ring on one of the oxen. If this is a song sung by the driver, it is a lament, certainly and the picture is certianly a protest over the treatment of Poles by the Russian Military.

byw, The Van Gogh was recently shown in an exhibit in Portland, OR, near my home. It is interesting, especially for Van Gogh in that is is nearly black and white, not the color you usually associate with him. I felt that it was really very stark and foreboding. A knowledgeable docent, when questioned about it, said it was really atypical of Van Gogh but in keeping with what was known about his mental state, at the time it was painted,