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I'm writing my bachelor's thesis on following topic: "Role of the tuba in symphony orchestra in XIX-XXth century" and i'm looking for specific orchestral excerpt. I've already got:
1) tuba as solo instrument (got "Bydlo", Mahler's 1st and 6th and "American in Paris" already)
2) tuba in a chorale (for example "Nabucco Overture", Dvorak's 9th Symphony 2 mvt)
3) tuba as a reinforcement for trombones - playing melody with trombone section ("Walkirie", "Phantastique Symphony", "Hungarian March")
I'm looking for orchestral works where you can find:
4) tuba (without trombones) as a reinforcment for cellos/double basses - melody or some "riffs"
5) tuba in contemporary orchestral music (different sound effects - up to 1999)
6) tuba as a bass voice for brass section (where there are sections where brass sections takes orchestral string section's role)
7) tuba as a bass for whole orchestra (low or very low, long notes)

Also, if someone has an idea what other role in symphony orchestra may tuba have, feel free to share

lionheart1PL wrote:I'm writing my bachelor's thesis ........
4) tuba (without trombones) as a reinforcment for cellos/double basses - melody or some "riffs"

How about the Meistersinger "solo"?

#4 Tuba without trombones: Prokofiev's first violin concerto.

I smell Mahler, but will let you do the research on him.

Sounds like an interesting paper...

Thank you guys, waiting for more ;)

Z-Tuba Dude - Which solo exactly do you mean? Can you name act/scene?

Another category I've came up with:
8) tuba as a percussive instrument - connected to timpani

I remember playing some XX-th century music where I was pretty much doing the same rhythms as timpani on one note in quite long part, but I don't rememeber what was it. I believe it happens more often, as in one of pieces you mentioned I saw that too (unfortunately it was 2-3 bars only).

The Meistersinger theme in the Prelude, letter J to L, where the tuba plays the tune with the basses & bassoons(?).

For Tuba supporting the cellos and double basses the nimrod movement from Elgar's enigma variations comes to mind?

lionheart1PL wrote:2) tuba in a chorale (for example "Nabucco Overture"

?

http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnk ... eIMSLP.pdf

imperialbari - I referred to first 8 bars of the overture But I don't know if I used "chorale" word correctly as I'm from non-English speaking country.

Neither am I a native English speaker.

What I objected against was your associating this excerpt with the tuba. It is for 3 trombones and cimbasso.

Klaus

the elephant wrote:Meistersinger is NOT a solo at all, ever. Playing it as such will get you fired. No matter how much we want it to be a solo, we are supporting the celli (not the other way around. Study the score.......The word "solo" means ALONE.

Z-Tuba Dude wrote:

lionheart1PL wrote:I'm writing my bachelor's thesis ........
4) tuba (without trombones) as a reinforcment for cellos/double basses - melody or some "riffs"

How about the Meistersinger "solo"?

Agreed! Hence the "quotation" marks.

I concur that the research needs to be done. There are many riches gained in studying the scores themselves!

Wade, I don’t disagree with you, but I have come to believe that the OP, fairly new to TN, comes from a country with a great national performance tradition, which may have adjusted less to the international mainstream than, say, our two countries have.

We also may have to deal with a language barrier, which may call for some moderation in our approach. Much of the shared TN knowledge may be new to somebody less acquainted with discussions in English.

Klaus

lionheart1PL wrote:...XIX-XXth century...

Not totally on-topic, but this part of your title is really confusing...no one really writes numbers like this. Just say (or spell out) 19th & 20th century.

bort wrote:

lionheart1PL wrote:...XIX-XXth century...

Not totally on-topic, but this part of your title is really confusing...no one really writes numbers like this. Just say (or spell out) 19th & 20th century.

Perhaps not in English, but this is standard in most Romance and Slavic languages. The OP has already said that he is not a native English speaker, so this may well be the way everyone writes numbers (at least those of centuries) in his part of the world.

Besides, it's not really that confusing, is it?

imperialbari - Ahh yes, I see what you mean about Nabucco. I'm not really sure (around 30% sure, actually) but I think I saw some information somewhere which says, that in first version it was cimbasso but later was rewritten as tuba. Could someone confirm/refute that?

the elephant - good point about Mahler's 1, thanks. As for Meistersinger - it's just as Z-Tuba Dude said.
As for the rest of your post - of course, I'm doing research on my own, looking through many scores, but if someone comes up with particular piece (for example "synchronise with timpani" thing may be quite hard to find) - why not make things a little bit easier? Of course there are blind alleys - but when we're discussing topic here, someone - just like you did with Mahler's 1 - may lead me out of it.

BTW Sorry for confusion!

the elephant wrote:Meistersinger is NOT a solo at all, ever...

Mahler 1 is NOT a solo at all, ever...
The word "solo" means ALONE...

Soli.

perhaps Mahler 1 and something like the Virgil Thomson "Symphony on a Hymn Tune" can be Catagory 9--tuba as a melodic voice in a non-unison pairing with another voice.

Fantastique (while not originally tuba) could be in a couple of catagories.
Sibelius 2nd...I'll let you go there, but it's definitely in one, maybe two, of them.
Les Preludes is another obvious choice.

It is an interesting topic, one which could be helpful to many of us. Please, when you have completed it, and the grade is final, consider sharing it!

I just played nabucco and it's not a tuba part it's a ciambasso part

finnbogi wrote:Perhaps not in English, but this is standard in most Romance and Slavic languages. The OP has already said that he is not a native English speaker, so this may well be the way everyone writes numbers (at least those of centuries) in his part of the world.

Besides, it's not really that confusing, is it?

Interesting, I didn't realize that! But do those languages use "th" as the indicator for ordinal numbers? Either way, just seemed odd to me. But then again, taking advice from the internet is always a good idea, right?

Back on-topic...

How about pieces that require two tubas? That could be an interesting special case, how the two tubas work together, and how both tubas work with the orchestra. Same for pieces that use tenorhorn or euphonium.