[Trombone-l] Calling all musicologists... slightly off topic...

[Steve Gamble]

I'm no Berlioz scholar, but reading his autobiography will reveal that
Berlioz repeatedly found himself in situations where he had to make do
with whatever resources were available to him while he was touring.
Often he performed his music with an orchestra that didn't match his
score.  Wikipedia is not a trustworthy source.  Someone could have
easily interpreted some random two-tuba performance as definitive or
not.  That kind of stuff happens all the time.  Note the lack of
documentation in this post, for instance.

Steve Gamble, Librarian
Tucson Symphony Orchestra
2175 N. 6th Ave.
Tucson, AZ  85705
520-792-9155 x118 office
520-792-9314 fax
520-991-7056 cell
sgamble at tucsonsymphony.org
www.tucsonsymphony.org


-----Original Message-----
From: trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu
[mailto:trombone-l-bounces at samford.edu] On Behalf Of
thetubameister at adelphia.net
Sent: Monday, August 11, 2008 11:50 AM
To: trombone-l: server5.samford.edu
Subject: [Trombone-l] Calling all musicologists... slightly off topic...

Okay, I'm suddenly unsure about something I've always been sure of :-)

On wikipedia, I read that Berlioz had at some later point rescored the
Symphonie Fantastique for two tubas instead of ophicleides.  I was aware
that he changed an earlier vbersion with a serpent to two ophicleides,
and my understanding was that Berlioz had never used tube without an
ophicleide also present.  I was also pretty darn sure that he had okayed
the _use_ of a tuba for the second ophicleide part, but not for both.

Who's right?  And is the tuba being refered to one of the "french" high
c instruments or some saxhorn variant of the larger pitches...

Howard?  Anyone?  Claiming two tubas sounds just wrong to me - but
Wikipedia isn't exactly a scholarly site.
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