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

[Howard Weiner]

At 11:49 11.08.2008 -0700, thetubameister at adelphia.net wrote:
>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...

Second question first: Unfortunately, I don't what kind of tuba is 
meant, although I can imagine it was some sort of Saxhorn.

As to the main question:
Here an excerpt from the Introduction to "Hector Berlioz New Edition 
of the Complete Works" vol. 16, Symphonie fantastique,  ed. Nicholas 
Temperley (1972):

"Instrumentation
...
Ophicleides -- In the autograph there is only one ophicleide part. 
... In [movement] V it is joined at the Dies irae by a serpent in Bb. 
In ADir [autograph directions for performance: 'A single sheet of 
30-stave music paper, with writing by Berlioz on one side.'] Berlioz 
directed that 'if the church serpent plays out of tune, as most of 
them do, an ophicleide will be more suitable'. P [printed full score 
(Paris, 1845)], PO [printed orchestral parts (Paris, 1845)] and APO 
[autograph additions and corrections in PO] allot the second part to 
an ophicleide in Bb, and give it music to play in [movement] IV as 
well as V. The 1st ophicleide is in C in all sources...
         In AP2 [autograph corrections to printed score of Jan. 
1845], P3 [printed score, 1846] the words 'or tuba' were added to the 
2nd ophicleide stave, ... In a letter to Hogarth dated 4 May 1853 in 
which he lists 'auxiliary instruments' required for the symphony, 
only one ophicleide is mentioned, and no tuba."

So, J.c., be unsure no more  ;-)

Howard


--
Howard Weiner
h.weiner at online.de
http://howard-weiner.de/

Tosca jumped to a conclusion.