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Zampa Overture by Herold

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 7:06 am
by Yane
Looking forward to Zampa with my community orchestra, but have a question about my opheclyde part: as written or octave down? Reading up on notation conventions for opheclyde was inconclusive. As written the part is mostly with bass trombone, which stikes me as pointless. Yes, I’ll ask my conductor, but I want the wisdom of the hive mind as well.

Re: Zampa Overture by Herold

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2018 9:13 pm
by MTFULRUTUBA
When I played the serpent part on Mendelssohn 5, I used an F tuba and played in the octave written. Worked well enough. It was a smaller regional orchestra and the conductor felt that an octave lower was too heavy. Plus, they didn't use a contrabassoon on the concert, couldn't afford it and it was cheaper to let me play it since I was already there. Since I'm the employee, I was happy to play it where ever they wanted ;)

Very cool to get to play a Mendelssohn symphony even if it wasn't exactly a tuba part.

Re: Zampa Overture by Herold

Posted: Wed Oct 03, 2018 10:03 am
by Yane
Thanks all for the suggestions, they were helpful. We will be doing the Mendelssohn 5 later this season, and I look forward to applying insights gained here. I am inclined to avoid switching horns, and the rest of the program sits well on Bb. I asked the conductor and his advice was “do what works”. After the first rehearsal I think I’ll do most of Zampa as written, and join the double basses softly in a few spots. It doesn’t help that the double bass section leader is also a tubist who is always ready to encourage me to crank pedal tones. 8)

Re: Zampa Overture by Herold

Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 11:09 am
by Yane
Richard Demy has a paper that changes my thinking on the subject. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67 ... adc700086/" target="_blank" target="_blank

Kudos to UNT for making this research readily available.