Posted by Rick Denney on June 14, 2003 at 07:48:38:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Who's Copying Whom? (Long) posted by js on June 14, 2003 at 00:13:49:
I agree with your assessment, having a belly of my own, though Mr. Jacobs was not exactly thin in his later years. The picture we have of Donitelli holding the York in Brian's book does not reveal an obese man, though we can't see his belly.
If you use a stand (I realize this wasn't an option in 1930), then this problem is even easier to manage. But I'd have the leadpipe repositioned if necessary to make it work. If you aimed it up a bit, then you could tilt the bottom of the instrument away from the belly, for example. This would not require lengthening.
But I wouldn't go to that trouble if I didn't think the instrument revealed my voice, as they say. The story we have is that Stokowski requested the large instrument to match his orchestral sound concept. Perhaps Donitelli didn't like instruments of that concept, just as Jacobs didn't like the Dehmal F tuba that Reiner requested. Maybe it didn't work in the Hall Philly used, for the concept they needed at the time.
Rick "thinking that even now some orchestra players avoid that sort of instrument" Denney