[Trombone-l] When to use what instrumentation

[Eliezer Aharoni]

Some views about using an Alto:
1. Use the alto on all choral works as it blends better with the female alto 
voices;
2. Use the alto for all classic stuff -Bach Handel Mozart Bethoveen Schubert 
Medelsohn etc.
In Brahms use the alto only when there'se no tuba - With a toba - the 
section blends better with a tenor.
Eliezer Aharoni
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Howard Weiner" <h.weiner at online.de>
To: "DF Cramer" <alto_trombone at hotmail.com>; 
<trombone-l at server5.samford.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 12:00 AM
Subject: Re: [Trombone-l] When to use what instrumentation


> At 06:41 08.11.2007 -0500, DF Cramer wrote:
>>Follow this link
>>
>>http://www.trombone-society.org.uk/resources/articles/shifrin/shifrin01.php
>>
>>to Ken Shifrin's doctoral research on the alto
>>trombone in the orchestra from 1800 to
>>2000.  Just because a part is written in alto clef does not mean alto 
>>trombone.
>>
>>The paper is a wonderful and insightful read
>>about the trombone and the orchestra.
>
> I'm afraid I can't share your enthusiasm for
> Shifrin's dissertation. It contains quite a few
> mistakes (it was obviously not very carefully
> vetted) and has a misconception as its point of
> departure (i.e., that the alto trombone [and with
> it the section of alto, tenor and bass trombones]
> was ubiquitous in the eighteenth and early
> nineteenth centuries), so I'd be skeptical of those insights.
>
> A few examples:
> At the end of chapter 4 Shifrin writes "Archival
> material strongly suggests that in the first
> performances of [Brahms'] Symphony No. 1 and
> Symphony No. 2, the trombonists [in Vienna] used
> valved instruments." -- While the part about
> valved instruments is undoubtedly true, the
> source he gives in note 72 is irrelevant and
> incorrect -- "Haus-Hof-Stadt-Archiv, Wien:
> Oper/K80/1884/Nr. 557." -- the correct name of
> the archive is "Haus-, Hof- und Staats Archiv"
> and the cited document has nothing at all to do
> with Brahms or the first performances of his
> symphonies, and only very marginally with the
> change from valve to slide trombones in 1883.
>
> In chapter 5, table 5.1, Josef Hilmer is listed
> as the trombone professor at the Prague
> Conservatory from 1903 to 1934. The source of the
> information about Hilmer is revealed in note 23
> to be "Usák, ... citing Hoffmeister's obituary
> speech for Hilmer in 1930" -- with no comment
> offered concerning the obvious chronological... ah... problem.
>
> In chapter 1, note 14, Shifrin wrote "Mozart
> called for an e" colla voce in the Gloria of the
> C Minor Mass, as well as in bar 182 of no. 6 in
> the theatre work Thomas, König in Ägypten, as did
> Bach in his Cantata no. 121; Gluck wrote an f"
> for the alto trombonist in Alceste. However, in
> all these cases, the trombone is doubling the
> voice part." -- The correct name of the theatre
> work is "Thamos" not "Thomas," and the f" in the
> first trombone part of Alceste does not appear in
> a passage where the trombone is doubling a voice part.
>
> I could go on for pages, but I think you get the idea.
>
> Howard
>
>
> --
> Howard Weiner
> h.weiner at online.de
> http://howard-weiner.de/
>
> Tosca jumped to a conclusion.
>
>
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