[Trombone-l] Berlioz, Beethoven

[Howard Weiner]

At 13:52 01.01.2008 -0800, Frank Darmiento wrote:
>Don't know about the Berlioz, but the original
>notation version of Beethoven's 5th is for alto
>trombone.

The original first trombone part of Beethoven's 5th is notated in 
alto clef, which however does not mean that it was intended for alto 
trombone. At the time Beethoven wrote the 5th, the alto trombone was 
not known in Vienna and Beethoven himself had probably never seen one.


>The original part is in a nice range for the alto--if
>you play alto.  If you're not comfortable on alto then
>do it on tenor.  However, I think you wind up sounding
>too much like Kenton's trombone section playing the
>high E & F on tenor--unless you have a Watrous-like
>upper register.

Until thirty or forty years ago, in most symphony orchestras (don't 
know about Kenton's) it was normal for the part to be played on tenor.

Howard


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

Tosca jumped to a conclusion.