Petrushka horn selection

[MikeMason]

So far, the a flat to d slurs are actually more secure on my yfb621 than the euph, for whatever reasons.

[Bob Kolada]

So far, the a flat to d slurs are actually more secure on my yfb621 than the euph, for whatever reasons.

Play D 12 maybe?

[bloke]

So far, the a flat to d slurs are actually more secure on my yfb621 than the euph, for whatever reasons.

Years ago, I bought an sm3 and I've always thought it was a piece of crap. After finding a few mouthpieces that work with this instrument, I pulled that thing out from the back of the drawer and tried it. It's as if this instrument and this mouthpiece were made for each other. You may not find the same thing to be true, and I would strongly recommend borrowing one and trying it out before buying one.

[JC2]

... which is what he said several decades after he wrote the piece - knowing originally that it would be played on an 8-ft French C tuba.
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Again, the mistake is to ask, regardless of the gravitas of the player, composer, or conductor.

"Hey Igor, should I play this introductory super high bassoon solo with an instrument with high d and e keys, or one without?"
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" without, of course. I want it to sound as though you are struggling, can barely play it, and are playing it with a crude or inadequate instrument... After all, it will be YOU (not me) playing it, and I'll only be standing on a podium up in front of you - waiting for you to play it."

I believe most professional Tuba players today would be able to play the Petrushka solo quite accurately on a CC or BBb tuba with a little practice. It's somewhat like getting a Bass singer and a Tenor to sing the same passage, It's a different tone colour and a different vibe. Skill shouldn't be much of an issue.

Personally if I had to play it I'd go for the F tuba. I think the Euphonium is going to be unnecessarily light. I'd play the CC if the conductor asked for it. Theoretically if the composer asked me to use a particular instrument I'd use what they wanted. Don't forget as musicians we are employees and our job is to bring the composer or the music directors musical vision to life. I'd happily show a conductor or composer all the options (F, CC or Euphonium) and go with what they desire.

At the end of the day, you do you!

[bloke]

I've heard live performances, radio broadcasts, recordings, and other brass players (located up in the balcony to play some other piece that required balcony musicians) have heard me play it. Every time I hear it, whatever the tuba instrument is, it's way under balanced by the very shrill clarinet taking the role of the person ordering the bear around. Further, the larger the bell the more mellow it's going to sound - no matter how much grit someone tries to put into it.
It's not my business what some other tuba player decides to do. If I absolutely had to (maybe if I had to sell off my other tubas), I'd play some big exposed solo whereby all of the whole tone scale pitches in the range of the solo could be played with the same valve combination, but I'd rather not, and I've never thought of D above middle C is a wonderful/secure pitch to play on either length of contrabass tubas.
My son-in-law who is the busy full-time horn player in a professional orchestra...
I recall a time when he played one of those super duper high Bach thingies on a chamber recital. I could just imagine how much he would laugh if I asked him why he didn't play that piece on a single F horn, so it would offer more of the rich overtones originally intended.
I've always preferred safer, more secure, and almost-certainly good over "i can do this, dammit, 'cause I'm a hero" regarding the choice of instruments, particularly as this goofball genre referred to as "classical music" is just about the only one where the patrons, the other musicians, and the music director always keep score regarding how many false pitches are played, and to play 999 of them wonderfully but to play 1 wrong is to receive a "bad grade". If I'm asked to play that piece again before I croak - and decide to play it on euphonium, I believe I can make my euphonium sound more like a complaining bear and less like someone playing the opening theme in some euphonium air varie piece at a senior recital. I believe I would just summon my inner Demondrae Thurman.

EDIT:
You know, I see the clarinet player fairly often who played the other half of this duet with me the last time I played this piece.
The next time we work together, maybe I'll drag my euphonium along and ask him if he'll record the passage with me. It would just be a phone recording, but it would be recording. Maybe we could run it twice with the F tuba and then the euphonium. Again, my euphonium's bell size - top to bottom (M-W) - is quite a bit larger than most other makes, and thus is closer to the profile of a French tuba bell.

[arpthark]

Not sure why there's all this discussion when Miraphone has already solved this problem (right there in the name, too):



real response/contribution: My tooba teecher considered the Bear solo to be part of our regular rotation "A" list of F tuba excerpts.

The older/more-removed from that teacher's teachings I get, the more I realize that I differ a bit from him... but I'd still play it on F.

Next time I'm in the mood, although I don't have the big honking euph that Joe and Mike have, I'll try it out on euphonium.

[bloke]

I've already stated that I'd play on F if I was called in the last minute to sub for somebody else, but - in my own orchestras - I would probably try it on the euphonium, now that I have a really large one.

That having been said, I've already confessed (in either this thread or another one...??) that - when some idiotic-arranger stupid-tesultura tuba part features some crazy high passage in the middle of an otherwise normal part, I unapologetically bring along the euphonium to play that nutty passage, and no one ever looks askance at me or says a word. I recall a solo passage in an arrangement of The Christmas Song where I played the melody (just after a key change and just before the turnaround). I think the highest pitch was a g# (or some such ??) "way up there". I wasn't going to risk stepping on that solo in the middle of a pops Christmas concert...Trumpet players do this stuff all the time.

... and my euphonium only has a model number and no model name. I suppose I could name it "Symphonie Fantastique".