Food for thought. New Tuba Solo lit?

[Grumpikins]

Its safe to say that years ago there were fewer people in the world including professional Tubists. Yet, many said tubists were very active publishing tuba literature.

Currently, there is an overabundance of humans including professional Tubists.

So why does it seem as though there is almost nil new literature published for tuba?

Or am i just so far out of the galaxy that i dont see it. (Hello Uranus, how are you today?)

Also, im referring to lit that us lower beings can handle.

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[bloke]

Over the centuries, many pieces were written for other instruments whereby some that were well liked by a lot of players and their patrons survived. Those pieces which survived eventually became known as "the solo literature".

After the Korean War - when more colleges expanded themselves into universities and more universities decided to consider "tuba playing" as a legitimate so-called "major", that created a vacuum and a demand for a body of solo literature, whereby mostly government taught and government employed composers worked to fill it.
It is now miles wide and inches deep, with not too many pieces that are particularly appealing to most ears, and a few which seem to be fairly good in spite of the fact that they are played on very low pitched and somewhat monotonously mellow sounding instruments. Further, virtually all are written - of course - in a post-1960 musical language. It seems to me there's plenty of stuff that's not worthy of my attention, and dangling money on fishing hooks (contests and commissions) for new pieces isn't necessarily going to inspire or attract remarkable composers.

To your actual question, I think I sort of answered it earlier in my comments in that the market is gluted, and it's mostly gluted with glut.

[russiantuba]

Go to an ITEA conference. There’s plenty of new solo music performed at those. Now, getting multiple performances by different people is the challenge. I’m happy that the consortium I led a few years back is still getting performances by people not in the consortium!

[bloke]

I shouldn't be posting again in this thread, but - having displayed at a lot of tuba shindigs - I have stuck my head in and listened to more than a few pieces in recitals. I have heard some pleasant sounds and amazing playing, but rarely do I walk away humming something that I heard.

bloke "themes...?? melodies...??"

[tubaing]

This seems like a good opportunity for a shameless plug... my wife wrote this piece for me. It is available for tuba+piano, band, or orchestra. Difficulty wise, I think it is pretty comparable to Gregson Mvt. 1 and similarly can can work on a contrabass or bass tuba (was written with a CC tuba in mind). I think the tonality is pretty audience and performer friendly.

[DonO.]

Since the tuba wasn’t invented until the 1830’s, it is one of our newest instruments. And at the time it was never thought of as a solo instrument. That really didn’t happen until the dawn of the age of virtuoso level tuba players in the 20th century. Because of this, a huge number of the solo pieces written for tuba were written by composers with a 20th century “modern” frame of reference. You have things like “Encounters II”, which shows off technical ability while at the same time being totally un-listenable. And the Hindemith, I know it has its fans, but I believe it is very off-putting to typical audiences. We have the Vaughn-Williams, which is 20th century but thank God VW was a neo-Classical tonal throwback. And stop to consider that, because of the relatively recent development of solo tuba playing, there is NO literature specifically written for the tuba from the Renaissance or Baroque periods, and not from the Classical period to my knowledge. There is at least one solo piece from the Romantic period I am aware of, “Introduction and Dance” by Barat. For the most part, truly audience pleasing “pretty” tonal music is sorely lacking in the solo literature for our instrument. Bill Bell had the right idea when he did arrangements (transcriptions, arguably?) of Bach and Handel, as did R. Winston Morris with is Gabrielli transcription “Ricercar”. We need more transcriptions from these pre-1830’s periods so that we have more choices of literature representing all of music history!

[arpthark]

There is at least one solo piece from the [Romantic] period I am aware of, “Introduction and Dance” by Barat.

Interestingly, and I only found this out because this comment spurred me to look, J.E. Barat was born the same year as Stravinsky, 1882.

I'd probably lump Barat in with other, more prolific, tonal French composers of the early-to-mid 20th century like Poulenc and Mihlaud, bridging the gap between pre-war French impressionism and later-20th century French modernism (think Boulez).

And the Hindemith, I know it has its fans, but I believe it is very off-putting to typical audiences

By all accounts, as evidenced in his letters and elsewhere, Hindemith wrote his umpteen solo instrument sonatas as pedagogical tools and not so much ("take it or leave it") for public performance.

After the 1940s, Hindemith's music takes on a very ponderous, "academic" quality. His writing in the 1920s and 30s was lean and sharp. I love Kammermusik (1922) and, of course, Mathis der Maler (1935). The tuba sonata came later, in 1955, and exhibits some of Hindemith's late-career inwardness.

[bloke]

I don't consider the Ralph Williams solo - written around the same time as mentioned in the previous post - to be some inspired work. It's listenable, but I don't think it goes much farther than that. I think one of it's strongest qualities is that it doesn't last very long. The second movement has more merit and musical potential than the rest of it.

Many government-employed composers (perhaps due to his success and popularity) seem to love to hate John Williams, and perhaps some who've tried to play his piece - and have stumbled on it - hate that piece, but it's pretty captivating, melodic, harmonic-and-modal, angry, romantic, virtuosic, laden with interesting features, and isn't just some twelve-minute ditty. I don't know the complete history of the composition of this piece, but it's quite obvious to me that it was revised and improved, and that might be part of why - in my view - it evolved into a pretty successful piece. (I might suggest that - as tuba playing prowess continues to elevate - that someone go back and write a two piano reduction of the orchestral accompaniment. The one piano version is pretty wretched - at least, to my ears.)

[DonO.]

In my previous post I of course meant to say “Romantic” period, not “aromatic”. It has been corrected. Gotta love Autocorrect!

[arpthark]

In my previous post I of course meant to say “Romantic” period, not “aromatic”. It has been corrected. Gotta love Autocorrect!

I'm sure it was pretty pungent back then, regardless.