Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Seating Question


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Posted by Rick Denney on September 07, 2001 at 11:45:32:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Seating Question posted by Carl on September 06, 2001 at 15:17:46:

In reviewing this long thread, I have come to the conclusion that the caffeine in my coffee was just as strong as in the Dutch version, and I would like to apologize. I made what was general agreement about most things sound like an argument, and I was wrong to do so.

The purpose of threads like this is so that scholarship improves. Not everyone who has done such scholarship should assume that the materials they studied are available to the average tubist, or even to the average professional tubist. It is not enough to complain that someone's approach is not historically accurate without an explanation of the history. For example, this topic has come up many times before, and the conclusions presented have done no farther than Berlioz used two ophicleides in Bb and C to compensate each for the problems of the other (this conclusion reinforced by Gene Pokorny's comments in his excerpts recording), and that the composer or his editor changed the notation to "tuba" in the 1850's. Nothing in the commonly available non-scholastic literature (e.g. Bevan) disputes this viewpoint. The reasonable practitioner would conclude that Berlioz wanted a sound something like that provided by the tubas that were available in the 1850's. This is apparently not the case, but it has gone uncorrected in many previous discussions, including in discussions where the questions have been asked directly.

I thank Carl for not only enduring my prodding, but also for providing references and information that we haven't had before in this discussion. Not only have we confirmed that Andy's conductor is reasonable in requesting a euphonium for the first part, but we have also begun to understand that even doing that is a compromise, with another possible compromise being to use two euphoniums instead of the more common two bass tubas.

We also learned that we hope Berlioz's powers of revenge departed with him.

Rick "scheduling an excursion to a music library" Denney


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