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Greetings all,

We're doing a concert at work that is far from our usual fare and I hope those of you in the area this Friday could come out and hear it. I'm playing the contrabassoon/basstuba part for the Strauss Op. 4 and, honestly, it's been a ton of fun--very challenging to emulate the characteristics of a contrabassoon. The other tune I'm playing on is the Harbison music for 18 Winds. If any of you are in the Annapolis area this Friday, come on out. Thanks.

Here's the link for the concert announcement:

http://www.usna.edu/USNABand/news/2008/081121.htm" target="_blank" target="_blank

Jarrod Williams
The United States Naval Academy Band

OUTSTANDING!

Best of luck, dude...I feel your pain. As I'm sure many on here have, I did the Strauss Op.7 Serenade once as an undergraduate. I don't think I've ever had to work on soft response as much as the weeks leading up to that concert.

In any case, I'm sure it will be a marvelous performance and I wish you a large and enthusiastic audience!

Oh, and say hi for me to MUC James Fowler...I don't know if I told you before but we went to high school together. Fun times. Ask him about "Strauss in the Doghouse."

Rock Chalk...

Hey Todd!

I'll say hey to James for you. Do you know, or have any thoughts as to how I could find out, if Strauss himself or his publisher attached the "or basstuba" part to the Op.4 and Op. 7? Tuba is clearly the wrong instrument for both these pieces--surely Strauss knew that. I've been wondering all week if the publisher had anything to do with it.

Hope you're well.

Jarrod

I'll take a trip to the library tomorrow and see what I can find out, but I'm not sure Strauss really would have known that. He was only 17 when he wrote the Serenade Op. 7 and 20 when he wrote the Suite Op. 4 (with a lower opus number...very strange).

I'll postulate that Strauss was entrenched in the German tradition of Harmoniemusik which was very popular at the time...necessity probably dictated that the music he wrote and played was performed in homes with a wide variety of instrument "substitutions." Who knows what kind of "basstuba" Strauss was familiar with in his teenage years? There certainly were a wide variety of designs being used in Germany at the time, from the Wieprecht/Moritz to the saxhorn family from Paris which were also referred to as tubas.

It's certainly a good question, but I'm fairly confident that the marking is Strauss' own having looked at some of his later scores. It's just really unclear what he might have considered to be a "basstuba" and what it sounded like. Perhaps those older instruments blended more easily with the woodwinds of the time? Besides, where's a contrabassoon when you need one? It was probably a lot easier to find a competent tuba player, even in the 1880s.

Anyway, I'll try to at least find some sources to consult tomorrow and pass on what I find out.

Cheers!