Posted by B.G., again. on October 06, 2001 at 14:49:39:
In Reply to: Dies Erie Advice Needed posted by Dale on October 03, 2001 at 16:17:03:
I've played Symphonie Fantastique only two times, but both times on the second part. The first time I played it, the first tubaist told me to take the Dies Irae down an octave, and we both played it fairly loudly. No comment from the conductor. He was fussing more over the bell part, in which they were fooling around with a couple of pianos and a rack of chimes.
The second I played S.F., it was with a completely different orchestra. We started out doing the divided octaves "thing" at the Dies Irae, but the conductor stopped and corrected us. He wanted to hear the four bassoons very clearly in the lower octave, yet he wanted a sharp accent at the start of each note. Here's what we ended up doing: the four bassoons played sempre fortissimo throughout the length of each note, which I assume is how their part is written. The first tuba, who was using an F tuba, played his part pretty much as written. Myself, on the second part, played only a short eighth note on the start of each of those Dies Irae chords. While this sounds crazy, it actually worked really, really well - assuming that you want to hear those bassoons.
For what it's worth,
Barry Guerrero