Little known works with great tuba parts

[tubaman71]

Check out Revueltas Homenaje a Federico Garcia Lorca. This piece has alot of really cool sound licks. I was very impressed.

Michael Medeiros

[tubapress]

This latest thread of favourite works without tuba got me thinking - what little known orchestral works have great tuba parts?

A couple which I have discovered are:

Rutland Boughton Symphony No.3 in B minor (Helios CDH55019) - to get this on the programme would be any tuba players dream. It has an incredible part throughout the work with the tuba having a prominent role. It is also beautiful romantic music in its own right highly influenced by Elgar, but also individual. I cannot recommend this strongly enough - it knocked me over the most since I discovered Mahler!

Bax Symphony No.5 (Chandos CHAN8669) - the tuba has a great solo in this work. In fact Owen Slade (London Philharmonic Orchestra) even gets a credit on the CD sleave! It really shows what a Besson 981 Eb (which Owen always played) can do.

Anyone else like to enlighten us with their discoveries?

Here ya go:

Nielsen Symphony No. 2 (not an unknown composer, but you never hear about this symphony!)
Kalinnikov Symphony No. 1 (amazing stuff in last mvt)
Franz Schmidt Symphony No. 2(holy moley!)
Hindemith Concerto for Orchestra (quirky but cool)

[hurricane_harry]

hang em high by elmer bernstien from the movie the maginicent 7

[a2ba4u]

Symphony No. 1 "The Gothic" by Havergal Brian

This piece holds the Guinness Book record for "Largest Symphony" and for good reason. In addition to the rediculously large string section, nearly triple-sized wind section, massive percussion battery, 4 (count 'em 4) extra brass bands, AND 400 voice choir, there are 2 euphonium parts and 2 tuba parts that have some incredible writing in them. The usual triple f footballs are present, of course, but there are also some very intricate and and complex licks to play. The range for the tuba parts is from C 2 octaves below the staff to the E above the staff--not exactly your grandma's tuba writing. The parts also tend to be more independent than you might think. It's hard to describe, but the tuba parts to this symphony make Mahler's and Bruckner's writing seem amateur.

The piece is virtually never performed live because there doesn't appear to be a hall on the planet with enough space to support both the performers and audience at the same time, and, to my knowledge, there is only one recording--on the Naxos label, of course. If you can find it, I also seem to remember reading a piece (article?) about how that recording was made (No, I don't think it was in the liner notes). Needless to say, they did not cram 800+ musicians into the hall at one time and press record.

Apparantly, this first symphony of Brian's gained him a very unfavorable reputation very quickly in his native England, and most of his subsequent works (including 31 more symphonies--none with the proportions of the first, though) were ignored.

The music itself is rather bizarre (as is Brian's occasional attempt at subtlety)--I would recommend listening with a score if you can--but the 2 disc set is definitely worth the bargain price if for nothing more than the novelty.

Cheers.

Kyle

[Tom Mason]

Two pieces that I can think of that don't get played anywhere near me and have good tuba parts are:

Samuel Barber's First Symphony

Shostakovich's First Symphony

Please forgive spelling, in a hurry.

Tom Mason