Quintet instrumentation heresy

[Donn]

There's no ideal balance. Consider the woodwind quintet, where the bass is one lousy bassoon - you're not going to feel that bass in your diaphragm, but it would be absurd to switch to bass sax or something to put a little more meat on the bottom. The composer of a woodwind quintet piece is fortunate to know, more or less exactly, how that instrumentation is going to balance out. String quartet, same deal. Brass quintet - well, you guys are mostly going to be playing arrangements of ragtime tunes and stuff anyway, right?

[toobagrowl]

What are you talking about: "There's no ideal balance"?? That is your opinion. Some tubists like to use F tubas in quintets. I personally think they sound too thin and "farty" in the low register for quintet. Some tubists like to use big CC or BBb tubas for quintet. I personally think they sound too tubby and woofy. I prefer a decent sized Eb tuba (compact & "fat") or compact CC for quintet as I feel they have the best sound and balance for a quintet or most any chamber ensemble. These are my opinions. Btw, I love ragtime music.

[Donn]

What are you talking about: "There's no ideal balance"?? That is your opinion. Some tubists like to use F tubas in quintets.

Did those tubists compose, or arrange, the works they're performing? The point is that my opinion about brass quintets would be about as relevant, in this context, as my opinion about trumpets, or the color red. You're a medium in which the composer may render some artistic notion, and the "ideal balance" is what that composer had in mind, not what you like. That ideal depends entirely on the piece, and the tonal color that makes it express what it's supposed to, so the distance between any particular brass quintet instrumentation and an ideal balance will tend to vary from one piece to the next.

[Wyvern]

the "ideal balance" is what that composer had in mind

How can any of us know what the composer had in mind, unless we are the composer? And often the composer does not know what they like either until they actually hear it! Just because a certain instrumentation was available to a composer at the time of writing, does not mean that necessarily provides the "ideal balance". Music is a living art and different interpretations can all be valid and good and that includes using tubas of differing tonal characteristics. Which is preferable largely comes down to taste and opinion and what works for you with your own quintet.

So experiment with using anything form bass trombone to 6/4 BBb and see what works for you. A variety of interpretations is what keeps music alive - and not a living museum just trying to reproduce one 'ideal' sound.

[T. J. Ricer]

A variety of interpretations is what keeps music alive - and not a living museum just trying to reproduce one 'ideal' sound.

Hooray! +1

[Donn]

How can any of us know what the composer had in mind, unless we are the composer?

Indeed, it's a conundrum. If "brass quintet" isn't a well defined instrumentation, then "work for brass quintet" can't be a well defined intention, without further elaboration (for example, a piece could be written for a specific quintet.)

There's no law against doing whatever you want with a page of music, play it however you want on whatever collection of instruments. If everyone has fun, it's a success.

But, so, that woodwind quintet, where we substitute a bari sax for the bassoon to get more meat on the bass - is there anything wrong with that? Yes and no. If everyone's happy, there's nothing wrong with it in the sense that there ought to be a law - see above. But there is something wrong with it, in the sense of erroneous, it suggests that we are confused about classical music performance.

It's a grey area, and to some extent a hopeless cause - the instrumentation will always change (and always in the direction of "louder" - cf. fortepiano, gut strings, etc.) - but that doesn't mean it is therefore not an issue at all. It does make sense, when pondering the fairly radical choice between a tuba or a bass trombone on the bottom of a quintet, to observe that the specific piece to be played has some intrinsic intention, that will be served better or worse by that choice - and the next piece will likely be altogether different. In the end it won't make any difference, we'll all play what we brought and hopefully everyone will go home happy, but if we're talking about an ideal balance, surely the composer's intention ought to figure into it somewhere?

[tubainty]

[quote][/quote]

That's a very cynical way to think about it

[GC]

Composer's intent is important; that's obvious. But what a composer does at a given time is subject to change. It's not unusual for composers to produce different versions of the same work, to reuse and rearrange, and to change course completely. Some composers want absolutely no variation from their original intent. Some don't care if you make some changes as long as the changes are good.

Musical interpretation is possibly the most controversial field in all of music, and there is no one truth, though some would like for it to be so (and claim that they know the only way that's correct).

[Donn]

That's a very cynical way to think about it

A little ambiguous there, but supposing you're talking about the idea that composers are motivated by money? Nah, maybe simplistic but it follows a kind of idealistic (or ideological) view of money's role in human society. Just as in nature, the rigors of competition combine with the mechanism of evolution to produce a world of endless marvels, competition for resources (money) in human society is supposed to bring out the best in us. Well, it's a theory.

In the present context, it doesn't really matter so much why stuff gets composed, why some of it is brilliant and some not, etc. We don't have to know who composed a piece, or why. In any case, it isn't just generated in a vacuum, it has as its context the instrumentation with which it's likely to be played. As we've been talking about this, with the bass trombone vs. tuba as the primary case in point, I have in fact been thinking about the kind of music that comes down to us from five hundred years ago. Well, maybe more like four hundred years ago. For me, that's one of the exceptions where bass trombone is likely to work out better. Not so much because it was written for a brass quintet with trombone, it was indeed very likely written for any collection of instruments - but coincidentally, the period stuff I've heard suggests that whatever instruments those might have been, they're all pretty light weight compared to today's symphonic artillery.

[Mudman]

Many years ago my two-bass-bone brass quintet put together a CD for the Fischoff Competition. We played some some heavy pieces including "Distant Voices" by David Sampson written for the American Brass Quintet, and Jan Bach's "Laudes" which was written for tuba.

Jan Bach received a CD of one of our recitals and said something like "Wow, the bass trombone sounded amazing on the bottom, except for in my Laudes. The bass trombone just doesn't have the foundation I'm looking for in that piece. AND there was one pedal C where the bass trombone even failed to speak . . ." (Guilty as charged, but it was a live recital!) I wonder if the other composers might have had a similar impression? "Wow, bass trombone was incredible, except in my piece where I imagined a tuba."

I was the bottom bass-bone player, and the other bass boneist is now in the Met. His chops were so strong that I was reluctant to let him play the bottom part in our quintet, lest I be shown for a low-brass weakling

The audience can enjoy any instrumentation as long as the playing is musical (see Mnozil Brass). But the composer may have a set expectation for their composition.

[Mudman]

ps. This same two-bass-bone brass quintet kept somebody from committing suicide.

We played a Christmas concert in Rock Island, Illinois. There were only about five people in attendance. They were all in the same party. We played our hearts out anyway. Our announcer pulled out the classic "We will now play 'the Girl With the Flaxen Hair', but she ain't here yet."

A few weeks later, we received a letter talking about how somebody had been contemplating suicide for several months. Our recital was the only thing that brought joy into this person's heart. I'm pretty confident that this audience member didn't have a clue as to which instrument was used in a standard quintet, or what a given composer's intent might have been.

So I'm fairly confident in saying that instrumentation doesn't matter at all. You want to do a solo recital on a 6/4 tuba? Good for you, just be musical. Quintet with 4 trumpets and one euphonium? Great!

(pss, anybody notice the funky instrument that fills the role of french horn in Mnozil Brass?)

[MaryAnn]

I play euph on the tbone part in a non-gigging BQT. I swoon over playing the Ewald quintets, even though the damn things are mostly in tenor clef. If I weren't reading treble clef in the brass band, I wouldn't get the key signatures mixed up. !

A different local quintet, one that gigs, played one of my pieces recently at two different outings; they have a very find bass bone playing the tbone part, and I think the quintet sounds wonderful. A tenor tbone can get really bright and strident at times, and mellow me the horn player, likes the bass bone sound.

MA

[J.c. Sherman]

Some of the Ewald quintets sound really nice with euphonium instead of trombone.
The euph and tuba pass a line back and forth, and it sounds like a blend instead of a contrast.

Even better, in my experience, is a Baritone on that 4th part. It’s just awesome!

Both my quintets like to vary the colors to different degrees. In one, the leader is rather resistant to anything "non-standard" but can often be convinced. He will do the Ewald with cornets, let me play some bass or contrabass trombone for certain works, and even insists on the cimbasso in one work in our rep.

The other group’s entire focus is on blurring the "standard" quintet sound. That group usually has Eb and C trumpets, often doubling cornets and flugs, horn doubling F trumpet (rarely), Bass trumpet/baritone/euph/trombone, and me on... well a long list of items, though usually a Miraphone 184.

Truly, as many of us gravitate to the character of the tuba, we have an expected affinity for the low range and the enveloping sound available in that register. Some, however, are just as turned on by a contrabassoon down there - maybe more so. Often, if a work is an arrangement (as so much of our quintet rep is), I'll start by questioning the voicing and instrumentation. More, I'll question it twice if it's a popular arrangement, since I'm not there to regurgitate others’ sonic ideals, but to create something both new and satisfying. 8 times out of 10, what's on the page remains what's played. 1/10, there will be a mild adjustment (really small tuba or euph, or cimbasso instead of 2nd bone). The other 10% of the time, I may do something unique or - perhaps - heretical

But it's fulfilling, especially when you put a smile on an audience with 5 trumpets!

My favorite overall? Eb trumpet, cornet, horn, baritone, small tuba, or two trumpets, horn, trombone and bass bone.

J.c.S.