Bydlo for the umpteenth time

[imperialbari]

A few minutes ago I happened to zap into a Pictures' performance during the commercials at Discovery Channel. BBC Classical Night Radio runs over one of our highbrow TV channels during night hours. High quality stereo, headset for the sake of my neighbour:

02:18AM
Musorgsky, Modest (1839-1881) orchestrated by Ravel
Pictures from an Exhibition, for piano (Promenade [1]; Gnomus; Promenade [2]; Il Vecchio castello; Promenade [3]; Tuileries; Bydlo; Promenade [4]; Ballet of the unhatched chicks; Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuyle; Limoges [Le marché]; Catacombae; Promenade [Con mortuis in lingua morta]; Baba-Yaga [The hut on fowl's legs]; The great gate of Kiev)
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sakari Oramo (conductor) [recorded at the Royal Albert Hall, London as part of the BBC Proms 2005 on 27 July 2005]

Bydlo sounded very well, even if it not as to be expected from the UK was played on a euph but on a tuba (F or Eb not to be told by my ears).

The performance was way better, than the last one I heard with the BBC Symphony, where the euph soloist slid into all of the 8th partial G#’s from the too flat 7th partial F#’s not written in the score.

Still I went glowing red with rage, when tonight’s tubist cut up a phrase very non-musically to take a breath.

I have a standing fight with my Norwegian friends, because I called a euph performance of Grieg’s Morning from Peer Gynt scandalous, as it was cut up in itchy-bitchy-tiny bits due to breath problems. Even a trill was cut up for breathing.

My intended point is, that if we want our instruments recognised on par with any other orchestral instrument, then we have to meet the standards of these instruments.

When I no longer was able to meet these standards, I stopped performing publicly even as an amateur.

Which hasn’t diminished my love for low conical brasses.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[Rick Denney]

When I no longer was able to meet these standards, I stopped performing publicly even as an amateur.

Well, Klaus, everyone has to set their own standards and live with them, but I submit as a friend that this may have cost you more than it has earned.

I'm quite sure my own playing has never lived up to my own standard, let alone yours, and yet I keep doing it. I'd hate to lose the joy of performing for fear than the listener might have standards as high or higher than my own.

Rick "who does his best" Denney

[imperialbari]

I deeply respect the replies to my opening posting. I regret, if I may have hurt a fellow player suffering illness. Glad I don’t know his name, and please don’t inform neither me nor this forum about that name.

My own policy was to refuse playing, if I were ill.

My decision to stop public performances was not that difficult to make. I played among several of my former students. When I could not meet the demands, which I had presented to them, it was time to quit. More or less symbolic my last performance was at the funeral of a former student (fortunately I didn’t know, that it would the last performance, as I was in pretty good shape that day - a series of pneumoniae changed that a few weeks later).

I have quite good ears and my main rule was, that I assumed, that every person in the public had equally good ears. Why offend the public and embarrass myself?

Ain’t asking for no pitying!

Just got several requests to write a book on the production history of European brass instruments. This will not happen, as my medium of choice is to post on several brass and recorder related lists and forums. Plus of course my editions of free arrangements and my web-based collection of brass instruments’ photos and catalogues.

Ain’t gonna getting bored at all!

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[Ian1]

Don't we all cut phrases short occassionaly? It's the nature of our instrument, and live performance. Sometimes we don't have time to breathe as deeply as we would like, or even the dryness of the acoustic can cause us problems.

I have covered most of the CBSO tuba work over the last few month's and he is indeed suffering ill health so has therefore decided to stop playing. No one want's to let fellow musicians down, but do we all feel 100% all of the time...? That performance was by one of the trombone players on a euphonium.

[Steve Marcus]

Can a tub(a)ist get to the point where s/he enjoys playing Bydlo? Why not? If you have the proper equipment, i.e. bass tuba (NOT euph), mouthpiece, and, of course, practice, you can feel so comfortable with the passage that it is actually fun to play.

[Ian1]

True words...

I've played it twice and it was a "tuba" excerpt which we had to play for the final Tenerife Orchestra audition. Actually think it was quickly followed by Fountains of Rome.

Great fun.

[Ian1]

EEb tuba = half press the 3rd valve for the reasonably high G# if it's a bad day!

Got that tip from the CBSO chap.

[Rick Denney]

Can a tub(a)ist get to the point where s/he enjoys playing Bydlo? Why not? If you have the proper equipment, i.e. bass tuba (NOT euph), mouthpiece, and, of course, practice, you can feel so comfortable with the passage that it is actually fun to play.

Maybe a pro. But even then I doubt it.

I've heard top pros who muffed the piano G# entrance, and they were playing F tubas.

I'll take a euphonium in a heartbeat if the solo ever comes my way. I figure a euphonium is a lot closer to the French C tuba than any bass or contrabass tuba.

Rick "thinking it's never fun to miss a note, and who does not enjoy making low-percentage shots" Denney

[Chuck(G)]

Personally, I think the Bydlo theme sounds great on horn, as some non-Ravel orchestrations have it. I think it'd be interesting to try the Ravel orchestration with a horn Bydlo.

[imperialbari]

Don't we all cut phrases short occasionaly? It's the nature of our instrument, and live performance.

I find that this goes especially for our bass- or contrabass-line work.

One of my last conductors, actually the last if rehearsals count, was a very skilled young trumpet player. He downright maintained, that the art of tuba-playing was to hide the non-avoidable line breaks.

Part of that art is not at all about lung capacity, but about the ability to make harmonic and melodic analysis on the fly.

All good music is about building tensions and then releases these tensions in a satisfactory or a dissatisfactory way (doing the latter is a common trick of the trade by all the best composers, as that builds new interesting sorts of tensions).

Cutting this principle down to its rudimentary execution rules for tubists: never breathe between the last 3 notes of a harmonic cadential progression unless the conductor specifically asks for a caesura.

My now deceased section mate, Ove, was strong in management and we did a lot of pro bono cultural work together, even some charities for youth bands. In the management department he was the front man, but he knew, that I was the by far better educated musician.

Ove was almost 20 years older than me, so he ran into problems breathwise. By default he asked me to put breathing marks in his parts. We had a system of "ideally only there", "on a bad day also there", and "on a really bad day even there". But then Ove never went for a solo. He was an old-style bandsman: The band above every single member.

Sometimes we don't have time to breathe as deeply as we would like, or even the dryness of the acoustic can cause us problems.

Very true! Have been there, have done that. Once during a very long dance night as bassbone in a big-band, I realised, that I had forgotten to take my asthma medicine. My long notes died without notice. I left the stage and took my medicine. Not a popular decision, but accepted.

I have covered most of the CBSO tuba work over the last few month's and he is indeed suffering ill health so has therefore decided to stop playing. No one want's to let fellow musicians down, but do we all feel 100% all of the time...? That performance was by one of the trombone players on a euphonium.

I want to express the best wishes for our fellow tuba colleague.

Despite the really bad phrase cut by the trombonist, I will give him this: He made the euph sound like a tuba.

That is my ideal of euph playing, which is very rarely heard from the UK, where I find the general euph style being on the leaner side of my taste.

Was it the bass trombonist doing that Bydlo?

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

[Rick Denney]

In my experience, a euph does not usually sound like a tuba.

That may be a matter of performance practice more than organology. The taper design of a French C tuba is closer to a euphonium than to a small British orchestral F of the past.

But I suspect what it requires is a mouthpiece with a larger rim diameter.

I have a Denis Wick 1 with the small shank that I stick in my Besson euphonium from time to time. It makes the instrument sound like a stuffy, small tuba. With a shallower cup, I suspect the stuffiness would clean up a bit but the tuba timbre would remain.

And a euphonium played by a tuba player usually doesn't sound as much like a euph as one played by a euphoniumist.

Of course, you can clamp the fourth valve down and play the euphonium like an F tuba, with dimensions not all that different from the smallest of the British orchestral F's.

The preferred instrument for many U.S.-based players is the Alexander 151, which is a Bb rotary euphonium of large size with a large bell throat and bell. But I still think it needs a shallower mouthpiece to get some zip in the sound. Too much beauty moves it back into the domain of euphonium performance practice.

Rick "thinking Bydlo needs an orchestral concept--ala Bobo's recent comments" Denney

[LoyalTubist]

I mentioned this before in another thread, but when I played Pictures at an Exhibition, the orchestra I played with didn't let me play Bydlo, except for the "oom-pah" parts. They had already hired a euphonium player to do it. No matter if I could cut the mustard or not, I wasn't going to play it.

Many of these decisions are executive ones which we orchestra members can't control.