Posted by Sean Chisham on December 03, 2001 at 17:14:34:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Romantic era Solos posted by dw on December 03, 2001 at 15:42:06:
Never said new music wasn't good. I just stated that the library of music for tuba is pretty poor compared to that of most other instruments.
Good new music does get played. I seriously doubt there is some phenominal original tuba solo sitting around which no one is willing to play. If it ain't getting played, there are probably other reasons.
Also never said music had to be tonal to be good. It simply has to be good to be good.
On your last point, I was suggesting not to rearrange the tune, but to instead take what is already published and generally accepted for another instrument and read it. Being able to transpose is needed for music which is not written in C.
The library of music for tuba is very very poor. Up until around the 1950's or so, composers gave the tuba very little credit for being able to play a solo line and therefore anything they wrote reflected this attitude. With the Hindemith Sonate and the Vaughan Williams Tuba Concerto things started to change. Bozza also contributed with the Concertino. Very few composers of high regard have written for us. John Williams, Brightman(sp), Gregson, and maybe a couple of others are all there are who have written pieces. There are a few other prolific composers for tubists, but I personally am not a big fan of either listening to nor playing their music. I won't name names, and must also point out that these are personal opinions only. Remember I also hate Yamaha horns, yet they are great instruments according many many professionals, students, and hobbyists alike.
I believe that great music is great music. By limiting one's self to the music which happens to be published in bass clef and in C is a true musical handicap. Many, not all, publishers have gone to great lengths through various editions of tunes to try to approach what the composer wanted conveyed on the page. To take that work and whip it up in Finale simply to transpose it up a whole step seems like a huge waste.
There are literally thousands and thousands of pieces of music to choose from which are not in C bass clef. Are you going to arrange everyone of them you want to play? It is impossible. Are you going to instead limit your selection to those which you have time to arrange or which have been arranged by someone else? If someone else arranged it, are you going to double check the original edition to see if they made alterations or mistakes in their arrangement? Which edition did they arrange from? Some pieces have many editions. Did the arranger use one which you prefer?
All of this is made much simpler by investing in your own music toolbox and taking the time to develop the skill of transposition. Horn players do it. Conductors do it. Tuba players also do it. Everyone's doing it. Wanna try some?
The topic of "new music" verses "established music" is a totally different topic. There has always been new music. Just take a music history course and study all the third and fourth and fifth string composers who lived and composed throughout the last 200-300 years and then try to find a copy of their stuff in the local music store. Most of them are no longer published. Why? If their music was great and enduring it would have lasted. Trust me. If a publisher could sell enough of composer XXXX's sonates to turn a tidy profit, he would. If composer XXXX's music sucks, then no one buys it and composer XXXX falls to the wayside as a small blurb buried somewhere in a music history book.
It ain't about new music being worse than established music. Being "new music" also doesn't make it worthy of performance. This is about entertainment.
sean
ps. None of the negative comments above were directed at any particular composer. They were meant to be generalizations.