[Trombone-l] Bartok gliss question revisited

[Keith Marr]

There is a movement (think it's the second) called the Interrupted 
Intermezzo, which is going along blithely until Bartok suddenly changes the 
whole mood for a few minutes, poking fun at Lehar's Merry Widow and 
Shostakovitch's 7th Symphony, which were both very popular at a time when 
Bartok's music was viewed as "too modern" in some circles.

There are two glissandi, one from low B up to F in the 3rd part and one from 
low E up to Bb in the 2nd part.

I've only played the piece once and was most disappointed at how little of 
interest there is in the 3rd trombone, apart from that little 15 seconds of 
fame. I can't imagine it being very effective on anything other than the 
original F trombone (Doug Yeo has one made for him by Yamaha!) or the Thein 
"Bartok" trombone (buy a trombone to play just one piece?) or a Bb/F/E 
trombone. I was playing a Holton TR181 at the time and was able to remove 
the Gb extension from the second valve at the end of the first movement, 
play the low B on two valves and release the second valve in the course of 
the glissando. There's plenty of time to replace the Gb extension again for 
the rest of the piece. The gliss happens so quickly that I doubt if anyone 
would be able to discern any beak in the glissando when you release the 
second valve.

Interestingly enough it occurs to me that my Rath Bb/F/D would not make such 
a good job of this because I haven't got any means to reducing the length of 
tubing on the second valve. Fingers crossed I don't need to bother playing 
the piece again, it was pretty boring to sit counting rests through anyway.

It sticks in my mind that Bartok writes the same glissando for bass trombone 
in either Bluebeard's Castle or The Miraculous Mandarin, I can't remember 
which. So maybe the Thein is a good buy after all - you could use it for two 
pieces! :-)

Cheers!

Keith in Bb/F/D
Bass Trombone
St Albans Symphony Orchestra
North Herts Big Band

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "d.sleeman" <d.sleeman at hccnet.nl>
To: "Trombone-List" <TROMBONE-L at server5.samford.edu>
Sent: Friday, April 27, 2007 11:35 AM
Subject: [Trombone-l] Bartok gliss question revisited


> Listmates, I wrote:
>
>> Bartok's CfO has never been on my reading-desk so I got rather 
>> interested. Could somebody please tell me in which part this gliss 
>> occurs?
>
> Due to the fact that English is not my mother tongue, it might not be very 
> clear what I meant. I meant in which MOVEMENT the gliss occurs :-)
>
> Dick Sleeman
>
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