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There is a YouTube video of the New York Philharmonic playing the Overture from La Forza del Destino and they are using four trombones and a cimbasso. I thought it was scored for three trombones and cimbasso?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxpNBUg5VmY

bloke wrote:If I had an associate principal and was playing a big free televised public outdoor concert, I'd sure stuck 'em behind a music stand.

I thought about that, but all four trombones were playing at the same time.

Mark wrote: I thought about that, but all four trombones were playing at the same time.

I'm calling the cops.

I would guess that the bass trombone would be doubling the cimbasso part. IIRC that piece would have been written for three valve trombones and cimbasso as that was a common instrumentation for the low brass section of mid to late 19th century italian opera.

Bnich93 wrote:I would guess that the bass trombone would be doubling the cimbasso part. IIRC that piece would have been written for three valve trombones and cimbasso as that was a common instrumentation for the low brass section of mid to late 19th century italian opera.

Yes, written for valve trombones as seen from a very un-trombonistic passage, where the 1. trombone plays a bass melody in unison with bassoons and low strings. At one point the cimbasso joins in an octave below the 1st trombone. Must have been a hell, intonationwise, on the old 3-valve instruments with no triggers. Dvorak also wrote difficult passages for his valve trombones, but then a special set of valve trombones with triggers in a storage of his main Czech orchestra.

The bass trombone (originally the 3rd tenor trombone) plays in unison or in octaves with the cimbasso in some 3-part part (harmonically seen) passages.

But that is not at all the rule.

There is true 4-part writing between trombones and cimbasso. And there is a fake 4-part writing that I only have seen with Verdi, who also uses it in Aida. This is true 3-part writing between 1st & 3rd trombones plus cimbasso, while the 2nd trombone doubles the cimbasso at the octave. This would be a strict No-NO in most harmony classes, but in big settings it adds chiff and clarity to the bass line much like adding a 4’-stop to the pedal of an organ.

And then of course all trombones plus the cimbasso play in unisons spread over 2 or 3 octaves.

Klaus

OK, I have also seen the bass line doubled by an inner voice in a piano piece by Grieg, where the purpose is about employing as many fingers as possible for a maximum of sound and compactness.

But in general the bass line is doubled downwards only.

Klaus

I have seen the NYP have all three trombones play the single trombone part on La Gazza Ladra Not to mention Alessi himself could probably count as two considering the volume he produces.

I have seen a video of Mr. Jacobs joining Mr. Kleinhammer on that same part in an older Chicago performance.

If doubling is wanted in this piece, the NYPO approach appears more adequate to me.

Many older brass instrumentations and brass dynamics only may be understood from the often very small numbers of string players available to composers at premieres in some areas and/or epokes.

Don Giovanni was premiered in Praha with 3 primo and 4 secundo violins, which only got their parts for the overture at the morning of the premiere day.

The trombone section was a group of travelling musicians hired in for this opera only. Their instruments in Eb, Bb, and F were of a very small bore.

Klaus

I seem to remember one of the full-time orchestra guys (I think a trombonist who doubled on euph?) saying on here a while ago that they had tried a bunch of combinations and his favorite setup for pieces with cimbasso was 3 tenor trombones and a cimbasso played specifically by a bass trombonist...