GOT IT: Contrapuntus I - King - 1960 edition - brass quintet

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chhite

Re: Contrapuntus I - King - 1960 edition - brass quintet

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imperialbari
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Re: GOT IT: Contrapuntus I - King - 1960 edition - brass qui

Post by imperialbari »

Didn’t Mary Rasmussen (despite her Danish name an American brass scholar) some decades ago criticize King’s tuba parts for blurring the original bass line by not clearly indicating whether the upper or the lower divisi lines were the original ones?

I think bass line players always have juggled octaves, if their instruments allowed for that. Some music was written for specific instruments with given limits of range. Like bass lines for bass viols that only wend down to low D. When these parts were played by cellos (down to C) or by bassoons (down to Bb) certain cadenzas may have been changed on the fly.

But problems may arise. I have played a brass arrangement of a Bach chorale setting, which opened with the tubas playing 2 consequtive ascending fifths, like C2-G2-D3, which hardly is considered kosher vocal counterpoint. And Bach’s chorales were written for his 8-piece church choir, albeit with organ acompaniment including a 16’- bass stop being implicitly assumed, as that is the explanation why Bach sometimes voices his basses above his tenors, even if the bass line still clearly represents the roots of the chords.

So octave juggling takes a sense of the given style. The better solution to the bass line opening mentioned above would be C3-G2-D3. The problem being the implicit ninth between C2 and D3. On the other hand Bach’s own original octave leaps always should be respected, as they represent sudden shifts in strength and/or intensity and have a symbolic function in that respect.

Klaus
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