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He's a gentleman who is not mentioned often enough.

The last I heard Joe was happily retired and living in Montana somewhere.

I grew up attending NY Philharminic concerts when Joe was the principal tuba of that orchestra (Lincoln Center Student Award kid...). You might hear someone else play the tuba in an orchestra, but you wouldn't have heard anyone better IMHO. Probably William J. Bell's best orchestral student, although Joe did years in the Band of America, NBC Symphony and even the old Asbury Park Concert Band too.

They polled the NY Phil musicians at one time solicting opinions on the orchestr'a performance repertoire, and which composers the musicians would like featured more often. Joe's answer (and this should register with any tuba-playing orchestra veterans) was "Mozart". It's always a bad idea to allow tuba players access to any kind of a "suggestion box".

Mark Heter

Hi-
Joe Novotny's Prokofiev 5 performance with Bernstein is still the ultimate,
IMHO--a great musician!!

Mark

I never heard him live. All I have is a bunch of Columbia recordings. But he did one helluva job on Sensemaya, his Mahlers were all spot on, his Vaughan Williams 4 was stellar, his Nevsky was terrific, and I could go on and on. Stud.

My favorites are the 1967 Mahler 6, and the 1963 Symphonie Fantastique. Both are unreal performances.