Returning to the repertoire question...

[Stefan Kac]

Every couple of months there is a discussion here about solo repertoire (or lack thereof) for tuba. People seem to feel (for obvious reasons) that the stature of the composer, and accessibility to both general audiences and non-professional players are important qualities. There have been a variety of ideas put forth as to what could be done.

I suggested that tubists seem to disproportionately look back instead of forward (musically speaking) or else they would find plenty of opportunities to realize new musical ideas rather than attempt to inhabit the cramped space of past styles. This, unfortunately, disregards the part about appealing to a large audience, and I made this suggestion somewhat out of spite just hoping to spark some debate. I didn't really have any specific evidence.

Then, I receive the most recent ITEA Journal, with accompanying CD. It seems that Harvey Phillips commissioned Gunther Schuller (!!!) to compose a sizeable piece for solo tuba and orchestra. Gunther Schuller is widely recognized as one of the foremost musicians of his generation. Harvey Phillips is widely recognized as THE foremost tubist of his generation. I read something everyday about how Harvey Phillips has commissioned "literally hundreds" of new works.

So my question is: where are they and why aren't we playing them? I generally pay attention to what goes on in the tuba world and I'd never heard of this piece until now. I actually enjoy listening to it and wish it had not taken this long to encounter it. So someone please cure my ignorance one way or the other:

-"You've been living in a cave. Everyone plays 'the Schuller.'"

*or*

-How many more of the "literally hundreds" of pieces are out there hiding, and why don't we hear more of them?


-

[anonymous4]

Where can you buy this piece? Who publishes it? Thanks!

[ufoneum]

You don't have to buy it. The solo part is in the new journal. Manuscript - probably the acc. parts are rental.

- Pat Stuckemeyer

[Rommel72]

ok, I am going to post my 2 cents in on this subject. There is a number of pieces out there for tuba, but I think a lot of us either don't have the time, or are just too lazy to do any research to find them. I think you would be suprised how much stuff is really out there if people would just take the time and look around. There is much more than just Vaughan Williams and Hindemith.

[Mark]

On January 5th and 7th, the Seattle Symphony, http://www.seattlesymphony.org and their principal tuba, Chris Olka, will be premier a new tuba concerto by Samual Jones, http://www.samueljones.net/.

Here are more details: http://www.seattlesymphony.org/symphony ... ateid=1739. You'll note that Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 is also on the program, so this should be a great concert.

[tubajoe]

RIGHT ON. Great thread.

[Albertibass]

well yes i agree that there is a lot of other stuff out there for tuba. But my issue is that my horn (BBb) makes some of this music difficult to play. I guess i can get over it, but there isnt anything for BBb tuba i guess because its not practical. But right now that is my issue trying to find a college audition piece. Right now it is the Gregson for me. I guess this is because i dont know where else to look besides Hickeys. Where do you find these other tuba pieces?

[TexTuba]

But my issue is that my horn (BBb) makes some of this music difficult to play. I guess i can get over it, but there isnt anything for BBb tuba i guess because its not practical. Where do you find these other tuba pieces?

There is nothing impractical about playing solos on a BBb tuba. I've done that since I've played solos and now I just play them on my CC. There is just about no solo that can't be done on your BBb. Now others will argue about timbre and such, but that's not the point I was making. Now that I live in San Antonio, I get my solos from Southern Music Inc. and RBC. When I didn't live here, I would order my solos from Pender's Music up in the Dallas area. Also, you can't go wrong with Tuba-Euph Press. Good luck and have fun!

Ralph

[Henry Gertcher]

Wow, what a great post.

I may be remembering the wrong composer but my roomate was gearing up for a performance of one of John Cage's percussion ensemble pieces and I believe he gave a lecture before the performance. So I happily attended both concert and lecture and posed the question of why most contemporary music seems to be composed for percussion. His answer was that they play the music. Think about it, when was the last time you heard any instrumentalis playing something written in the last 25 years? I only know of percussionists that perform modern compositions on a regular basis. I don't count myself as I don't really play much any more and I don't think I was that great to warrent my own concert.

I remeber my University gave regular concerts of modern works. I only remember seeing a few students that were not percussionists and usualy only when their instrument was being highlighted. More importantly, I very rarely remember any non music majors going to any concert let alone to one with modern compositions on the bill.

I also think another problem is that most people have a negative perception of modern works. They have either not heard any modern music or they have heard a few pieces that they did not like. People tend to stay with things that they like. When was the last time you tried some new food? Like most people you probably have a certain list of foods that you will eat. Sure some people have a wider variety of foods they eat but how often do they try something new? It took me 2 years of nagging by friends to try sushi. Back to music this means that they don't expose themselves to new music. Also, we look back on classical music with the advantage of time. This means that most of the music that was not popular has not survived or at least is not well known. I liken it to listening to the radio stations that play classic rock. They only play the songs that were very popular and even then only a few songs from each band. How many rock bands were there in the 70's versus how many do you hear on the radio. Not having lived through the 70's that I can remember, I slowly got in to classic rock through the bands you hear on the radio. I than bought a few albums and wondering why most of the songs on an album were never played. Simply put, they do are not popular across a wide demographic so they are put aside. Think about this, how many composers can you name from the classical period aside from Mozart or Handle? Maybe half of them, and even then how many of their works are you familiar with? The point is that there are a lot of composers who wrote a lot of music, we simply cannot know all of them.

Lastly, I think that this is a problem faced by all instrumentalists and all ensembles. We need to sort the good music from the bad music. By this I mean the music that people will listen to and pay to hear. I don't think there is any good way to do this other than to listen to a lot of new music and decide for yourself. I don't see this as being too difficult as most composers or publishing companies have the ability to atleast reproduce the music electronically. It would not be exactly like a live performance but it would definitely help to decide if the piece was worth playing.

Well, that is my 2 cents. I am looking forward to other peoples opinions.

Henry Gertcher

[scouterbill]

I don’t post often, but I’ll throw in on this one. Performing modern music can be terrific. After studying a piece and analyzing it, so you know this motif appears here or that rhythmic pattern re-occurs there and this cluster represents this idea, and so on, a musician can really enjoy performing a work. The listener, who may be hearing the piece for the first time, can appreciate the musicianship required to perform the work, but won’t pick up on the subtleties that make the music work. I attended a Brass Quintet conference a couple years a go that included Mr. Phillips and Mr. Schuller, and the New York Brass Quintet. (as an aside, listening to Harvey, meeting him and shaking his hand was a thrill this lowly tuba player will never forget). The closing concert included a variety of music including Civil War tunes, works by Mr. Schuller, and a piece by Gabrielli. I can’t remember a better performance. The Schuller work was astounding with its complexity and the skills required to perform it. After the concert, listening to the concert goers in the lobby I could hear them humming or whistling the themes from the Gabrielli. As musicians, we must play to our audience. If recognizable music (not just melody) is what they want, then we must give them that or they will go away. If you are in a university setting and have a “culturedâ€

[NickJones]

I was very lucky this year to go on tour to Norway and give our 20th performance at the Beaumaris Festival ,with the Beaumaris Band we gave the world premier performance of a new tuba concerto written by the Black Dyke Band's young composer in Residence Peter Meechan , fantastic music really accesable and played with jaw dropping skill by Les Neish , check out the bands website for more details of the tour
www.beaumarisband.org.uk

[Stefan Kac]

Thanks to everyone for the great insights. I think the hindsight question is particularly important. You could almost call it Musical Darwinism, except it's not the music itself evolving but the gradual establishment of a consensus on the part of musicians. Who knows if that Schuller piece will become standard rep? I'd certainly like to see it put out there more so that we can find out.

It also occurred to me that, by category, two of the hardest things to get an orchestra to program are tuba concerti and new music. So pieces like this have two things working against them. Furthermore, most opportunities for tubists to perform concerti come about though competitions, which presupposes that the piece has a piano reduction or arrangement, and that this version can also be effective musically. I wish I could be in Seattle in January. It seems that we go several years between each time a major Amercian pro orchestra programs a tuba concerto. (was Journey maybe the last one that was commissioned and performed? That was at least 5 years ago.)

And I don't mean to come off as thinking that solo pieces with full orchestra are the be all and end all for us. Obviously, there's more to life, even if we did have a plethora of great pieces. It's just an intriguing situation. What if there had been 8 Harvey Phillips all over the world, each commissioning over 100 new works that immediately fell into oblivion? That wouldn't get us very far. So we need not only to bring these works to fruition, but also to ensure that they reach both performers and audiences who will advocate for them (a very fragmented group, unfortunately, both geographically and socially).

Also, if I'm not mistaken, John Cage essentially invented the very idea of a percussion ensemble and is credited with composing the first work(s) for such a group (during the very early stages of his career, before he was known for introducing "indeterminacy"; the pieces use conventional notation, etc. and are still considered standard rep). Varese was also somewhat obsessed with gaining acceptance for percussion instruments, and "noises" in general. So I don't think it's a coincidence that percussionists play works by these composers; if the tuba's sound had been considered by major composers to be the last uncharted frontier in unearthing new materials from which to forge their works, they would have done the same for us. Instead, they moved on even further to electronic music, which ideally gives the composer a sonic palette that includes any sound that can be produced or synthesized by any means. Now that's cool.




OK, I've written enough...sorry



-j

[lprince]

Cage studied with Schoenberg:

After two years it became clear to both of us that I had no feeling for harmony. For Schoenberg, harmony was not just coloristic: it was structural. It was the means one used to distinguish one part of a composition from another. Therefore he said I'd never be able to write music. "Why not?" "You'll come to a wall and won't be able to get through." "Then I'll spend my life knocking my head against that wall."[/quote]

[sc_curtis]

I'm sure there are lots of NEW solo/ensemble rep out there waiting for us to "discover it." But sometimes its hard filtering out the crap from the gold.

Honestly, who wants to hear a concerto written for a vacuum cleaner or car horn. These novelties are distracting, and put a lot of people off from searching out new pieces.

(I know there are some of you that would actually enjoy listening to a vacuum cleaner concerto, but how many times?)

[Steve Marcus]

(I know there are some of you that would actually enjoy listening to a vacuum cleaner concerto, but how many times?)

Malcolm Arnold knows. He earns his royalties every time "A Grand, Grand Overture" is performed.

[sc_curtis]

Maybe if you were a bit taller, my point wouldn't have flown right over your head...

[Bandmaster]

I was lucky enough to make it to a concert by The Claremont Winds on November 20th where the second performance of a new concerto for tuba was performed. It is a wonderful piece, very melodic and a pleasure to the ears. Below is an out take from the program:

Concert for Tuba by Ken Applegate
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Ballade
III. Scherzo vivace

This concerto was originally composed for tuba and piano for Dr. Tony Mazzaferro, Director of Bands and Professor of Tuba and Euphonium at Fullerton College and mentor of the composer, who called him "key in the composer's growth as a musician and human being." The arrangement for band was completed last winter and was premiered by the Fullerton College Symphonic Winds with Dr. Mazzaferro as soloist and the composer conducting in April. The first movement of the concerto is intended as an homage to two major concerti of the 20th century - by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Gregson. After the Ballad demonstrates the tuba's ability to sing, the composer creates a final movement with comical characteristics, evident in its light-hearted theme and humorous backup lines. An up-and-coming young composer, Applegate is the first two-time winner of the Fullerton College Dan Radlauer Composition Competition. He has written numerous pieces for jazz band, concert band, brass ensemble, and instrumental solo works. He is currently pursuing his degree in composition at Cal State Los Angeles.

I had a chance to talk to Ken after the concert and I was very impressed with him. Plus The Claremont Winds sounded fabulous and the piece really showed of their ability. Dr. Mazzaferro did an outstanding job with this solo piece. Ken is a member of this forum, if anyone is looking for more information about this piece.