Re: Re: Re: Re: BB industry!


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Posted by Anon on March 01, 2001 at 21:46:48:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: BB industry! posted by B Harvey on February 27, 2001 at 17:10:45:

My recent post re Walter Piston's comment on Wagner and CC tubas was from memory. Today, I pulled the book at the library to refresh what I thought I had read many years ago.

The book by Walter Piston is entitled, "Orchestration", and was published in 1955. (Most of you know that Piston was a respected composer and educator, most notably as Professor of Music at Harvard University.)

On page 285, under the heading, "The Tuba in 16-foot C", he writes, "This is the instrument designated by Wagner as the 'Kontrabasstuba', and used by him as the bass of the group of Wagner tubas. It is also called the double C tuba (CC), or contrabass tuba in C."

Just to make my position clear: I don't really care whether Piston is correct, or whether Wagner preferred CC's over other-pitched tubas. Even though I play CC's exclusively, it seems to me BB's would work just as well for Wagner, or any other work requiring a contrabass tuba. My original post was simply to stimulate discussion.


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