Hi Troops,
Alot has happened in the last 50 hours or so since the C French tuba possibility opened up for the CSO's "Beyond the Score" series. Gerard McBurney, the creative designer for the series, was insisting that it be played on a "regular" tuba. This was until he ran into one of librarians, Carole Keller, who informed him that the CSO in the immediate past has (mostly) had a tenor tuba play the Bydlo. He soon ran into Michael Mulcahy (who was packing for the upcoming Europe tour) and got the lowdown as to what a C French tenor tuba was and that a modern day euphonium is the closest thing to it. In the interest of being historically accurate, he wanted an effort made to locate one of these C French tenor tubas. That is when he and I talked.
That is when my call went out to tubenet.
I have received tons of great information and some great sources as to where to find these instruments. At this point, there is still no decision on the part of the orchestra's artistic management as to what they want to do and what they are willing to do in order to be have the same high artistic integrity as they had last spring when the original tenor tuba (which was performed at the premiere of
Holst's "The Planets") was used in performance in Chicago. I imagine alot of this upcoming "Pictures" will be sorted out in the next couple of days, even when we are already off on this European tour.
First, I want to thank all of you for your help in identifying sources where one of these instruments could be found. I have now at least ten sources from South London to South Dakota where an instrument can be found.
Much of the information and the conversation is stimulating for all of us. At the international conference in Cincinnati in June, the mission statement was "Preserving the past, inspiring the future." Beyond "preserving the past", we have to [u][u]care[/u][/u] about that past and realize our history and our legacy. Hearing the "Dies Irae" from "Symphonie Fantastique" played on real ophicleides will give us a better idea of what the composer had in mind. Hearing real saxhorns in the Ewald "Quintet" will give us a better idea of what our sound was intended to be (and how the cross-relations work so well with the other instruments). Hearing what Ravel's intended sound was for "Bydlo" (and the rest of "Pictures") gives us a chance to connect with our history, our legacy and our roots. Personally, listening to that original rendition will never take away from great performances I have heard of the piece played with the Chicago Symphony by Rex Martin on F tuba, Jacobs on the CC tuba (the Kubelik recording) or Jay Friedman and/or Michael Mulcahy on the euphonium. It is just good to hear what Ravel was thinking about in this masterful orchestration project of his.
So, the saga continues until some decisions are made "upstairs" regarding these upcoming performances later in September and the "Beyond the Score" performance on Sept. 20. For any of you who do have the interest, do check out previous "Beyond the Score" sources on the Chicago Symphony website:
http://www.cso.org" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank . It is a fascinating series that is very informative for all (even those on-stage who don't want to admit it).
Again, thanks for all who have read and helped out with this project thus far.
Cheers, Gene Pokorny (aka "Northern")
FYI: "Northern" is the designated nickname for a steam locomotive with a 4-8-4 wheel arrangement. That is the locomotive (the Union Pacific #844) that is pictured on the front of my CD, "Tuba Tracks"
