[Trombone-l] Dvorak Symphony No. 9 (NWS)

[Ray Horton]

The worst ever, for me, was the "Carmen Fantasy:" for violin (I think by 
Sarasate?).  It has either two or three notes for trombones, right in 
the middle of the piece - we don't even play the last note!  Many years 
ago, we did one concert in which that was the only work on the program 
that used trombones.  (I tried to tell the section that we were running 
that program out, all through Kentucky, but they were on to me.)


Fortunately, that was the during the last year in which the LO was under 
a per-service contract and we went over our minimum, so we got paid 
extra for that rehearsal and concert.


The opera _Fidelio_ is pretty awful.  That's on the docket for next 
season. 


On the other end of this sort of thing, in my life as a composer I did 
write a piece for orchestra that has a solo bass singer, sitting in the 
orchestra, sing only ten bars near the end of the work.  It's very 
effective, and no one has complained about it, so far.  I had planned to 
use the voice throughout the work, but it just made musical sense to 
save it. 


Raymond Horton



daveburch at fuse.net wrote:
> Here's another example: Ravel's 'Sheherazade' is a 30-40 minute orchestral 
> suite with soprano. He uses the trombones for one brief passage, just a few bars in the 2nd movement. In his defense, these are a really cool few bars, the climax of a long buildup where the trombones get to put on the capper (reminds me of Sibelius' 
> 7th in this regard). 
>  
> --Dave Burch 
>
> ---- Keith Marr <epigraph55 at hotmail.co.uk> wrote: 
>   
>>> I'm not picking a side here, just asking a question.  Should those
>>> sorts of logistical considerations outweigh artistic considerations in
>>> the composer's mind as the piece is orchestrated?
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>>       
>> In an ideal world artistic considerations would always take priority but the man that foots the bill for the concert will have a say in the matter and when times are hard it can mean not getting your pieces performed. I wouldn't be surprised if it means popular pieces get missed off community orchestra programmes too, especially in countries where players of a certain instrument are hard to find. We find there are many orchestras over here in UK where players play in several bands to cover the shortage.
>>
>> There is another issue here too, that of compositional discipline. I know I had to write the cor anglais out of a piece a year or so back as they wouldn't pay the fee for a guy to play a dozen bars. In the end I wrote the 2nd oboe out and put it all onto the cor anglais instead. It made it a little high in places but far from impossible. In the end the piece was better for it. I think the point someone made about Dvorak's wanting to broaden out the narrow bore trombone sound by adding the tuba for a few bars could be a valid reason for omitting the tuba. I doubt anyone other than the tuba player would notice these days (no offense tubby guys!).
>>
>> As for Das Lied, well I played mandolin in the 8th Symphony once so I know where Mahler's coming from - obviously had no budget constraints!
>>
>> Good exchange of ideas.
>>
>> Cheers!
>>
>> Keith in Bb/F/D
>>
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