Origin and adoption of the CC tuba?

[MikeMason]

It sounds like the final answer to "why CC?"is: August Helleberg heard one being played on a street corner and liked it.Everything after that was tradition and influence of one generation on the next.Tradition is a powerful force and one that does not necessarily involve reason...

[windshieldbug]

I always wondered why the combinaation of Eb and Bb instruments became the norm versus say F and C instruments.

I believe that you have to go back to military band practice of the mid-ninteenth century including Eb/Bb keyed bugles, and Sax's develpment of an entire Saxhorn range of instruments of Eb/Bb.

The key of the instrument is not so curious as transposition. Bass clef instruments read actual pitch in an orchestra, so why not treble clef instruments, too?

[Wyvern]

The reason for the use of Eb and BBb in the UK and USA seems fairly obvious - the influence of Sax. In the UK the brass band is of course based on Sax instruments alternating Eb/Bb through the band.

However what seem strange to me is why the Germans adopted F and BBb. I guess the F originates from the first Wieprecht/Moritz tubas being in that key! But then why combine with BBb rather than CC?

However, the fact that Helleberg saw a German band using a CC tuba must indicate that the CC, as well as the BBb was used in Germany a century ago.

Which brings me back to that 1885 British CC and what that was used for. Certainly not for brass bands, so seeing it has lyre box to carry music marching it must have been for military use.

[Richard Murrow]

A couple of you have misinterpreted what I said. I did not say that the player Helleberg heard on the street was playing a CC, just that he was playing a Sander tuba. My understanding is that August Helleberg was already playing a CC tuba by the time he was playing in the CSO. Apparently he was impressed be the sound of the Sander and maybe it was a CC, but we can only speculate about the key of that particular instrument.

Helleberg's father, Christian Helleberg was a tubist and in one picture that I have Christian was definitely playing a very early F tuba. August was born in 1864 and this photo was taken when August was 5, so 1869. This was obviously taken only 34 years after the original patent date for the tuba. If August learned from his father there is a strong chance that he started on the F tuba. The real question is, when did he start playing CC.? Incidentally, he was also a cellist and doucle bass player and according to his grandaughter he actually played double bass in the Metropolitan Opera when there were no tuba parts. A practice that was also common at one time in smaller German orchestras according to one German tubist that I talked to many years ago.

[Rick Denney]

Richard is bringing us some new data that interests me quite a lot.

Back in the day, Sax and Wieprecht were competitors, and their gig was making and selling a complete "system" of instruments to the military bands of the day, who they saw as their best market.

What made the system possible was the invention of the valve, and I think that explains why treble-clef instrument transpose and bass-clef instrument (for the most part) do not.

The original trumpets and horns were really bugles. The players were limited to the notes in the harmonic series, so the instruments tended to be very narrow to allow the players access to the upper reaches of the harmonic series where the notes were close enough together to provide enough selection of notes. With this system, a piece of music in C would best be played on a C trumpet to maximize the number of usefully available notes, particularly low in the harmonic series. If a trumpet player had a C trumpet, and needed to play a work in Bb, he would add a crook between the mouthpiece and the trumpet to lower it to Bb. Or, he would pull out his Bb natural trumpet.

Some of those instruments might have also had tone holes, but they would still have been largely limited by the harmonic series of the bugle.

It was practical to write the music so that a given black spot would be a given partial in the harmonic series, whether or not the instrument was pitched in Bb, C, D, Eb, or whatever. Thus, the music was written to a standard notation, and the instrument chosen to match the key of the work. For the types of instruments they played, the notation was practical.

Trombone music wasn't written that way, because the player has a slide and is not limited to the harmonic series of the plain bugle. So, they wrote it as it sounds, and let the player choose the slide position needed to make the note. And this was in the day when soprano trombones were pitched in (okay, I don't know what they were pitched in--Eb?), tenors in Bb, and bass trombones in G or whatever.

Tubas were not possible in those days, because the point of a tuba is to play low and no instrument was playable that would make usefully low notes but still allow the player to play high in the harmonic series. So, there was a lot of pressure to invent a way to easily change the length of the bugle to make it possible for musicians to play low in the harmonic series and still have a good selection of notes. When valves were invented and first became practical, tubas were, for the first time, a reasonable possibility.

Wilhelm Wieprecht and his maker, Carl Moritz, were the first to postulate an F tuba made possible by the invention of the valve. As I understand it, Wieprecht's "system" was based on F and C instruments, though he never made a contrabass tuba in C.

Best I can tell from my reading, it was Cerveny who made the first contrabass tuba in C, using a plain rotary valve, which was an adaptation of the Belinerpumpen that Wiprecht used. I'm not sure Cerveny made the C contrabass in 1845 even if they made a rotary tuba then, despite their web page, but the literature is not complete. Clearly, however, Cerveny's contrabass tuba was known to Wagner, who scored it as we all know. Cerveny was a Graslitz maker and that part of what is now the Czech Republic was considered Germany at the time. Other German makers appeared to have followed Cerveny's lead.

Klaus can show you pictures of F tubas used until surprisingly recently in Danish orchestras that clearly show their Wieprecht roots.

Sax also wanted to market a complete line of instruments, and created his own "system". His system just happened to follow the Bb/Eb sequence, for reasons unknown to me. He also gravitated to the valves invented by Perinet (i.e., piston valves).

Sax was the more successful salesman, and his designs gained acceptance to a wider audience. Italian, British, American, and French tubas trace their roots more to Sax instruments than to Wieprecht. The Eb tubas that seem to have been standard in American orchestras from the Civil War to the turn of the century seem to have been top-action Sax-style instruments, such as my old Missenharter or the better known (and better made) Distins. These probably came into use alongside ophicleides for a long overlapping period.

According to Bevan, the standard orchestral "tuba" in Britain before the F was probably a euphonium used along with an ophicleide. Barlow was a euphoniumist who developed the small British orchestra F tuba. Compared to his euphonium, the Barlow F wouldn't seem so small, and it certainly was bigger than a Wieprecht F.

But under Wagner's influence, the Germans went big, and Cerveny seems to have been the principle maker of contrabass tubas.

Back in the U.S., bands were largely populated by immigrants (just as the country was), and German immigrants were highly social and also brought a rich music heritage with them. That's where musicians strongly influence by the German tradition, such as Helleberg, would have developed their musical sensibilities. Helleberg likely grew up in the presence of Cerveny-style contrabasses, and likely also was steeped in the music of Wagner. Pictures of U.S. players before that time seem to show small, Sax-style top-action Eb tubas. The first pictures of a U.S. orchestral player holding a rotary contrabass was Helleberg.

Then, more mixing, and more speculation on my part. Tuba players liked the size of the rotary contrabass, but they wanted to buy instruments made here, by makers who had been trained in the Sax-style use of perinet valves (despite that many over-the-shoulder instruments of the 1850's and 60's used rotary valves--that generation of makers seems to have lost contact with later generations). So, American makers started making Perinet-valved contrabasses of the type players wanted. American makers could easily adapt their Perinet-style valve blocks from helicons to front-action tubas, and I think this is where the modern front-piston tuba came about, somewhere following the turn of the last century.

Richard tells us that Helleberg probably used C even before he found the Sander, and this is likely a reflection of his heritage. His father might have left Germany before the Sax-style use of Bb influenced the contrabass--who knows? But the use of C surely seems to have started with him.

It appears to me, therefore, that the first orchestral contrabass used in the U.S. was likely a C, while the military and professional bands, whose tradition grew out of the "instrument system" of Sax, used Bb. Thus, bands are a result of Sax's Eb/Bb system, while orchestras followed their own path until their players found something they settled on. Remember that bands were commercially more successful than orchestras in most places in those days. (Still are, but now popular bands use electric guitars.)

The cross-fertilization between orchestras and the successful commercial bands probably brought Bb into the orchestra, perhaps just because of the availability of instruments. Bands sought to develop their own instruments, such as Sousa's work with Pepper and Conn to develop the first upright-bell helicon. Those players didn't want to learn new fingerings, so they took their Bb contrabass tubas to the orchestral. And in some cases (Helleberg being the example), it went the other way.

Like bands, schools were more rooted in the "instrument system" concept popularized by Sax, so they used Eb and Bb tubas. The current professional bands at the top of the military have switched to orchestral C tubas, but most schools never did (and neither have many of the lesser bands in the military).

These threads of history have many gaps and connect only by speculation, but I think that's how we ended up where we are today.

Rick "thinking it's too bad Cerveny's quality control doesn't match its history" Denney

[windshieldbug]

Wilhelm Wieprecht and his maker, Carl Moritz, were the first to postulate an F tuba made possible by the invention of the valve. As I understand it, Wieprecht's "system" was based on F and C instruments, though he never made a contrabass tuba in C...

Sax also wanted to market a complete line of instruments, and created his own "system". His system just happened to follow the Bb/Eb sequence, for reasons unknown to me. He also gravitated to the valves invented by Perinet (i.e., piston valves).

Sax was the more successful salesman, and his designs gained acceptance to a wider audience.

I would venture a guess that it was the orchestra horn tradition which cased the Wieprect/Moritz basstuba to be constructed in F. The orchestral handhorns were at the time built in (as far as I can discern) Bb alto to Bb basso, with crooks in between. Remember that the German/Austrian tradition has been also to go to BBb cotrbasses.

Valves were first adopted by bands, while orchestras were slow to change. Bands had Bb trombones descended from sackbutts, and already a tradition of Bb/Eb keyed instruments. So rather than Sax being calculating (which by all accounts he WAS), I rather think that it just reflects the tradition he followed. My suspicion is the Wieprect and Moritz were simply following the orchestra tradition, which eventually led to the F/Bb double horn.

I therefore postulate that the French 6 valve C tuba was a direct descendant from the C ophicleide, but with valves.

So again, I am left to wonder, why the C trumpet and the CC tuba? My only explanation is the slightly brighter tone quality given the use of a similar bore expansion and bell to a BBb.

[Rick Denney]

My suspicion is the Wieprect and Moritz were simply following the orchestra tradition, which eventually led to the F/Bb double horn.

And yet the target market for Wieprecht was the Prussian Guard, not some Austrian orchestra. That doesn't make what you say untrue, of course. Can the F/Bb double horn show common ancestry with the tuba? Did that instrument grow from Wieprecht's system? Or from the Prussian Guard?

Rick "who now has to go back and reread" Denney

[Wyvern]

I therefore postulate that the French 6 valve C tuba was a direct descendant from the C ophicleide, but with valves.

That would certainly make sense and of course in Germany they did not have the ophicleide tradition which would explain the different direction.

[Wyvern]

And yet the target market for Wieprecht was the Prussian Guard, not some Austrian orchestra. That doesn't make what you say untrue, of course. Can the F/Bb double horn show common ancestry with the tuba? Did that instrument grow from Wieprecht's system? Or from the Prussian Guard?

I kind of remember reading the theory that the first tuba players in the Prussian Guard were transferred horn players, so that may be the link?

[windshieldbug]

Cornet Compendium EARLY HISTORY Part 4

"Cerveny is normally credited with constructing the contrabass in BBb and CC in c1845. It came to England in 1850, but took many years to appear in amateur bands (Newsome 1998, 25-26)."