Bruckner 7, no Wagner tubas

[chronolith]

Finding a few willing horn players is not too difficult. Finding actual Wagner tubas is proving to be more of a problem.

Supposing I can't track some down, are there any suggestions for alternate instruments? Euphs and alto horns? Just make the horn players play their normal horns? Kazoos? Yamaha synth?

Thanks for your thoughts, especially the useful ones.

[modelerdc]

Wessex tubas sells an affordable Wagner tuba. Of course you will need four. Don't know if they rent them. Some colleges and orchestras own a set, if you call around you might find some available for rent of better yet, loan. My orchestra has borrowed a set from another orchestra before, don't know if they charged, didn't ask. Of course the Wagner tuba was adapted for French horn players from conical bore band instruments that already existed, and didn't already use french horn mouthpieces. It would be possible to play the parts on the small English bore baritones, for the B flat tuben parts, and maybe the euphonium on the F tuben parts. Most of the audience wouldn't know the difference, but be ready for purists to scream.

[chronolith]

This is not for a professional group. If we are to have Wagner tubas then we are going to have to find and borrow them (or approximate).

Young and ambitious to be sure, but established and pro we are not.

And if a purist comes whining I will assume that it is a preamble for a major donation. Money -> mouth.

[imperialbari]

Large bore horns will sound closer to WT's than will baritones/euphs.

Klaus

[TubaKen]

You're in Chicago, no? Surely the Chicago Symphony owns a set, and lends them to whoever asks?
But, seriously, what you want (assuming you can't find the Wagner tuben) is to cover those parts on regular french horns. I've never performed this, but if memory serves, there are eight horn parts, and four of them pick up the Wagner tuben for the slow movement (a memorial to...Wagner), and play their regular horns on the other movements.
Besides, all the horn players I know intensely dislike playing on Wagner tuben. They're invariably out of tune, and the timbre (to me at least) is far inferior to the french horn. Sure, it's a cool visual effect, but musically, they won't be missed.

[Mark]

This is not for a professional group.

Wagner Tuben are not instruments that you can borrow, practice for a few hours and sound good playing. It would be a lot easier and probably sound better using French horns.

[barry grrr-ero]

Just one person's opinion, but I think the second movement definitely sounds better with Wagner tuben - especially in the chorale for horns, W.T. and contrabass tuba located AFTER the big climax.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9s2JSQ-pWo" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Wait, I meant this: Berlin Phil. W.T. Be sure to go to 6:30 also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFm2C-ve7qw" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

Here's a complete Bruckner 7 with Christian Thielemann/Dresden Staatskpelle (superb!). While there's not a shot with the whole section together, go to 43:00 to hear what a great job they do with the chorale I'm talking about above (horns, W.T. and contrabass tuba).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTMDz8lwoNI" target="_blank" target="_blank

[Ace]

I prefer Wagner tubas in Bruckner's Seventh Symphony if good instruments and players can be found. A few years ago, my orchestra (Oakland's Prometheus Symphony Orchestra) used W.T.'s in the Seventh and got very enthusiastic comments from the audience. We had little trouble borrowing from the several sets of W.T.'s here in the San Francisco Bay area. French horns can be effective also, especially if a horn mouthpiece with a larger throat and back bore is used (a Bach 10 S comes to mind).

Bruckner's Seventh is a great work by a great composer. However, Bruckner's output is best known for his sacred music, choral and organ. He was one of Europe's best organists. I ran across this video on YouTube and enjoyed it very much. Beginning around 28:00 is a good place to start.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG0tRkFmHqY" target="_blank

Ace

[chronolith]

4 horns are scored. The 4 tuben are needed in addition to the horns for the second and fourth movements.

[bort]

This is not for a professional group.

Wagner Tuben are not instruments that you can borrow, practice for a few hours and sound good playing. It would be a lot easier and probably sound better using French horns.

I've watched some TOP level orchestras playing Bruckner w/Wagner tubas... and still fracking notes. I think there's a real good reason why Wagner tubas as as unpopular as they are.

[bort]

Not the point.

The point is that if a top-level professional struggles with the WT, then I'd be willing to bet that a non-professional player with limited time on the instrument would have a difficult time with it. It's really a different instrument unto itself.

Yes, fracking notes is human... but when the French Horn playing is flawless, and then all of a sudden the WT playing is "okay," there's something going on there, and it's not a lack of musical talent.

With all that said... the learning curve may be steep, but if a non-professional group has a group of motivated players who want to give it a try, then why not! They'll steal the show!

[Tom]

Wagner Tuben are not instruments that you can borrow, practice for a few hours and sound good playing.

A huge +1 from me. They are difficult instruments to play well at all and can be wickedly difficult for players that haven't spent a significant amount of time working with them.

I am in orchestra management with a "big" orchestra that owns a set of four Alexander double Wagner tubas. When we do a work that calls for Wagner tuba, our players immediately request the instruments and spend months with them preparing for performance. Yes, our standards are high and we expect our players to be prepared to play their WT parts at the highest professional level, but nonetheless, it illustrates Mark's point...I've got "big orchestra" pros that struggle with the instrument. You can't pick these up for rehearsals the week of the concert and expect to breeze through the performance. For some of our horn positions, WT is even required during the audition process, so we take it pretty seriously here.

We make our set available for rent to many other orchestras (and yes, chronolith and I corresponded about his group renting them which won't work out in this case. No, we don't rent them to individual players or to community bands/orchestras, sorry - please don't ask me). Since most orchestras do not have Wagner tuba sets, they rent from some of the larger orchestras that do. In 99% of the WT rentals I deal with, the orchestra requesting then only rents them for 1 week - the week of their rehearsals and performances - so it's no wonder that the vast majority of WT playing happening out there is pretty rough and sounds like it - the players haven't had much time to spend with the instrument.

[imperialbari]

As I understand it, the Met has 2 horn sections of each 4 players, where each section stays intact as opposed to the rolling make up of sections known from other large orchestras. One of these sections specializes in playing Wagner Tuben. Sounds like a good approach.

On occasion of this thread I reheard some WT videos. At least one professional Bruckner 7 video sounds so horrible that I wonder why it at all was uploaded. Even a WT sectional by members of a top notch orchestra sounds very odd in my ears. Whereas the almost 50 years old Solti/VPO recording of Siegfrieds Trauermarsch sounds fantastic.

Klaus

[Wyvern]

Wagner tubas are beautiful instrument with glorious sound - and a very popular horn in the Wessex line up. Older Wagner tubas did have intonation problems, but now that is not an issue. We have made a number of improvements to the Wessex Wagner tubas.

To OP, if you cannot get Wagner Tubas, then the best alternative would be German oval tenor horns and Kaiser baritones. Very similar tone. They are what the Wagner tuba is based with French horn mouthpieces to accommodate professional orchestral horn players.

[barry grrr-ero]

I've watched some TOP level orchestras playing Bruckner w/Wagner tubas... and still fracking notes. I think there's a real good reason why Wagner tubas as as unpopular as they are

Interesting, because I was told that Vince DeRosa and others in L.A. often times used W.T. in the studios because they were more accurate and reliable. Maybe that was mostly for stuff scored down low.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8_BPcZ52xo" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

[imperialbari]

One mean statement about the use of WT’s in Hollywood hinted that arrangers/orchestrators got very popular with the studio horn players, because WT’s equalled the higher tariff for doubling.

And I do not agree that the German oval band brasses are the best substitutes for WT’s. The resistance of the horn-type mouthpiece and leadpipe of the WT demand a much higher wind pressure than instruments played with trombone type mouthpieces. That high wind pressure adds an intensity to the WT sound that is best emulated by horns.

Klaus

[barry grrr-ero]

However, Bruckner's output is best known for his sacred music, choral and organ

Really? - because other than the Te Deum, I can't think of ANY non-symphony work by Bruckner that gets performed frequently.

Maybe I'm off on this, but I think forgoing W.T. in Bruckner 7 because they're too difficult to play, is liking saying it would be OK to play the opening of Janacek's "Sinfonietta" with trombones instead of euphoniums (or whatever the correct instrument is), or not bothering to observe the specified distinctions between trumpets and cornets in French works that call for that (Massenet, Berlioz). Where do you stop? Why bother with finding a Viola d'Amore for the Janacek? How many people bother to notice that Mahler specifies a keyboard glockenspiel for M7?

Decades ago, I heard the San Jose Symphony do B7 and THEY used Wagner tuben and sounded just fine (and that horn section wasn't a 'top tier' one by any stretch of the imagination).

[imperialbari]

San Jose Symphony hardly had enough horn players to man all horn/WT parts. But then they could have hired a full WT section from either SF or LA. The SFS solo horn player, Robert Ward, plays the Bb WT for the fun of it (1st horn players rarely play WT in orchestras). He has used the WT as a horn substitute in The Bay Brass, where he plays 3rd horn.

Klaus, whos WT is a 5 rotors Hoyer in F

[TubaKen]

"4 horns are scored. The 4 tuben are needed in addition to the horns for the second and fourth movements."
Sorry--forgot the Wagner tubas play in the 4th mvt. as well as the second.
"I prefer Wagner tubas in Bruckner's Seventh Symphony if good instruments and players can be found."
Yes, but the OP is in an amateur orchestra with little (or possibly no) access to the needed instruments. Sure, in an ideal world, we should follow Bruckner's score to the letter, but the best alternative (IMHO) is to use french horns.
I heard the LA Phil (under Rattle) perform Bruckner 9 a few years back. There are 8 horn parts, and four of them double on Wagner tuba. First chord from the Wagner tuben was horribly out of tune. They fixed it pretty fast (these guys are awesome players), but if pros at this level struggle with this instrument, I can just imagine how four amateurs with a couple weeks practice would sound!

[barry grrr-ero]

Yeah, I don't know - it was decades ago. I remember I was in the balcony of San Jose's horrible "Center for the Performing Arts" (CPA), and there was a minor earthquake during the performance. It was conducted by an old Austrian who was considered a Bruckner specialist, Kurt Woss. Because of him, I suppose, it was actually very good.