Handel's Messiah - Tuba Part

[Mark]

So, I'm browsing through the Cherry Classics CD and I stumble across the Hallelujah Chorus and it has a tuba part! Well, sort of. Some one has taken the Cello-Bass part, scratched out cello and written in tuba. But, Cherry did include it on the CD, so...

[Mark]

so...

...a sousaphone is a type of tuba, so this next December when one of your string player acquaintences mentions a Messiah gig, you should show up as well, bring a sousaphone, and insist on playing and getting paid.

Well, since these are the parts from the Vancouver Symphony, I guess you should direct your comments to Ellis Wean or Gordon Cherry instead of me.

[Chuck Jackson]

This is not as weird as you may think. Back the late 40's, Thomas Beecham approached Eugene Goosens, then Principal Oboe of the Royal Philharmonic(before it went defunct and became the Philharmonia) and asked him to do an arrangement of the "Messiah" for huge forces. What came of it was a hybrid of the Prout Edition with added Contrabassoon, tuba, horns, doubled winds, and a full persussion section. Beecham made his famous recording of the piece with this arrangement and as far as I know, it has rarely, if ever, been played sense. I believe that the recording used over 300 voices. It can be bought and should be in everyones library, if for nothing else, sheer sonic audacity. It remains one of my favorite recordings of anything ever done. I sense that the historical people fainted dead away when they heard it, but I say "pooh" to them. Period performance practice is nothing more than sheer guess work. So, yes, there is historic precedent. I have never seen the Goosens score, but rest assured, there is a tuba part. And you gotta love the percussion, especially the cymbals and triangle parts interspersed throughout the piece. I think ol George Freidrich would be happy!!!!


Chuck

[Chris Horsch]

In a somewhat ambitious community orchestra, I have played the second bassoon part in the Messiah and the contrabassoon part in the fourth movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony on the tuba, and the experience convinces me that they both would have written for tuba had it been available. It's great fun. Don't pass it up if you get the chance. The second bassoon part in the Messiah actually works better than the cello or bass parts would. It isn't just a doubling of the first bassoon, but much more of the kind of thing you would expect for the tuba.

[Doug@GT]

Beecham made his famous recording of the piece with this arrangement and as far as I know, it has rarely, if ever, been played sense. I believe that the recording used over 300 voices. It can be bought and should be in everyones library, if for nothing else, sheer sonic audacity. It remains one of my favorite recordings of anything ever done. I sense that the historical people fainted dead away when they heard it, but I say "pooh" to them. Period performance practice is nothing more than sheer guess work. So, yes, there is historic precedent. I have never seen the Goosens score, but rest assured, there is a tuba part. And you gotta love the percussion, especially the cymbals and triangle parts interspersed throughout the piece. I think ol George Freidrich would be happy!!!!


Chuck

That reminds me of the liner notes from my ASO recording:

Handel's original performing forces numbered about forty singers and forty instruments. He evidently was fully satisfied with this size, quite normal for the time, for he could have had many additional performers had he so desired. The practice of enlarging the orchestra and chorus began only shortly after his death. In 1784, a Handel Commemoration in estminster Abbey used 525 performers. Mozart did the first re-orchestration five years later, dropping the old-fashioned harpsichord and rewriting the accompaniment for a Classical-period orchestra. Numerous later revisions and expansions further bloated the score in deference to nineteenth-century tastes for large orchestras. The choral forces grew even greater. At a Handel Festival in London for the 1859 centenary of his death, 2,396 singers took part. Fifteen years later the chorus for this annual event had grown to 3,500, and as late as 1923 four thousand singers were assembled for a performance.

The tendency in recent years has been in the other direction, fulfilling at last George Bernard Shaw's wish, expressed in 1891: "Why, instead of wasting huge sums on the multitudinous dullness called a Handel Festival does not somebody set up a thoroughly rehearsed and exhaustively studied performance of Messiah...? Most of us would be glad to hear the work seriously performed once before we die."

Interesting how differently people view this stuff.

Doug "would like to hear that Beecham recording"

[Chuck Jackson]

Enjoyable notes, Doug. I really like the ASO/Shaw recording and have forgotten about the notes. The Beecham recording was at Border's here in LV last Christmas. I think you should be able to pick it up at Amazon. While not to everyones tastes, I really like it for it's sound and life I prefer the Shaw for overall study, but the Beecham for enjoyment.

Chuck"who will conduct at least 5 performances of the Messiah again this year with various groups and never gets sick of it"Jackson

[Mark Preece]

I have a recording of the Messiah performed by the Black Dyke Band and the Halifax Choral Scociety. Wow! What an interpretation of a great work. This amazing brass band gives a really convincing performance of this piece, and the Choir is also quite good!

Check it out!

http://www.blackdykeband.co.uk/bdb/2003 ... s/mess.htm

[Chuck Jackson]

That is, indeed, a fabulous recording. The only quibble I have with it is that the keys were changed in many of the numbers to fit the band. A minor petard. This is a great feast for the ears.

Chuck

[Doug@GT]

Anyone else do the Sandy Fatt...Patty "rock" Messiah thing when she did this on tour (to sellout crowds...at least in our town) quite a few years ago? Tons of instruments were hired, and all of our parts were already recorded in the "mix", which was played in the house system louder than the "paid/live" instruments.



bloke "I remember - right in the middle everything, they brought out Phil Driscoll to play some 'Jesus - scream trumpet' solo...' made absolutely no contextual sense whatsoever."

Sounds horrid. Anthony Burger has an interesting "rock" rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus. Lots of piano, obviously. It's a Lari Goss arrangement, so in that sense it's very well done. My mom always complains that she can't really hear the choir, though (which is a valid complaint--the emphasis is clearly on the music).