David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post Reply
stewbones43
Posts: 218
Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2018 5:11 am
Location: Somerset, UK

David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by stewbones43 »

Help,
I am stuck here in the UK with age-related Coronavirus self-isolation (Over 70s!) so I am unable to go out to any sheet music shops even if there were any decent ones nearby! So this is the only way I have of getting the info I need.

I have my copy of the Ferdinand David Concertino in Eb for tenor trombone but I know there is a version for Bass trombone. Is this just a transposed down to Bb version or are there other differences?

Thanks and stay safe.

Stewbones43
Conn 36H(Pitched in D/A)
B&H Sessionair
Besson 10-10
Conn 74H
Yamaha YSL-641 with Yamaha Custom Slide
Conn 88H Gen II with Conn SL4747 Slide
Besson Academy 409
Rath/Holton/Benge Bb/F/G or Gb/Eb or D Independent Bass
User avatar
BGuttman
Posts: 5897
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:19 am
Location: Cow Hampshire

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by BGuttman »

It's most likely transposed. The original is available on IMSLP (solo part only, no orchestral accompaniment parts). As far as I know, the "bass trombone" of David's day was just a large bore tenor, although there may have been some instruments in F or Eb.
Bruce Guttman
Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra
"Almost Professional"
Dennis
Posts: 197
Joined: Sat Mar 24, 2018 6:23 pm
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by Dennis »

The bass trombone version is transposed down a 4th to Bb. It makes the pedal G in the slow section a pedal D ( :bassclef: :line3: 15vb). I can play that note, but I'd rather not play that note in a public space. Hickey's has it for bass trombone and piano:

https://www.hickeys.com/music/brass/tro ... no.php?p=2

No orchestration appear to be available.

I have the original in the sucky old Kalmus edition: the one with the missing tie across the bar at the soloist's entrance. If I remember correctly it was marked for Tenor-Bass Posaune (i.e., a large bore tenor with F).
User avatar
harrisonreed
Posts: 4494
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2018 12:18 pm
Location: Fort Riley, Kansas
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by harrisonreed »

BGuttman wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 11:33 am It's most likely transposed. The original is available on IMSLP (solo part only, no orchestral accompaniment parts). As far as I know, the "bass trombone" of David's day was just a large bore tenor, although there may have been some instruments in F or Eb.
The full orchestral set of parts is up on there now.
User avatar
BGuttman
Posts: 5897
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:19 am
Location: Cow Hampshire

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by BGuttman »

Thanks for that. We had a young person who wanted to play it with my orchestra and he had to play something else because the parts were only available as rental. Now I have a set.
Bruce Guttman
Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra
"Almost Professional"
User avatar
harrisonreed
Posts: 4494
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2018 12:18 pm
Location: Fort Riley, Kansas
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by harrisonreed »

Yeah. I don't know what edition that is. The one people played through most of the 1900's was orchestrated by ... Armand Rossin? Something like that. Aidan interviewed Christian Lindberg recently and he talks about it. The Lindberg orchestration is beautiful and he made changes that made it appealing to the modern orchestras of his day (early 80s). Trying to promote himself with the older edition didn't work because no orchestra wanted to play such a badly orchestrated version. I say "his day" but his orchestration is still the best. The woodwind parts are so nice.

Looks like the IMSLP version might be the Kalmus, not so great version, that someone stole and slapped a Creative Commons share license on. At least you can do pretty much what you want with it.

A lot of scores on IMSLP are Kalmus plates with bogus "renewed" copyright notices. You can copyright the new date, and editor notes, but not the underlying sheet music -- especially if you didn't even change the plate at all.
User avatar
LeTromboniste
Posts: 1019
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 7:22 am
Location: Sion, CH

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by LeTromboniste »

It was indeed originally intended most likely for a "bass trombone" in Bb, i.e. a wide-bore tenor-sized instrument. The F attachment was invented just a few years later. Considering that, I'm not sure I understand the need for a transposed version in Bb... Of course bass trombonists played much smaller mouthpieces then.
harrisonreed wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:49 pm Yeah. I don't know what edition that is. The one people played through most of the 1900's was orchestrated by ... Armand Rossin? Something like that. Aidan interviewed Christian Lindberg recently and he talks about it. The Lindberg orchestration is beautiful and he made changes that made it appealing to the modern orchestras of his day (early 80s). Trying to promote himself with the older edition didn't work because no orchestra wanted to play such a badly orchestrated version. I say "his day" but his orchestration is still the best. The woodwind parts are so nice.

Looks like the IMSLP version might be the Kalmus, not so great version, that someone stole and slapped a Creative Commons share license on. At least you can do pretty much what you want with it.
The parts on IMSLP are the original 19th century Kistner edition, I assume from a Kalmus reprint. It was not at all uncommon at the time, especially for lesser known composers and especially for concerti which were often lead by the soloist anyway, to have only parts engraved and published in order to save money, and the conductors either read from a part or from a hand copied score when available. None of David's violin concerti, also published by Kistner, have scores for instance, as far as I know.

The score on IMSLP I haven't examined in detail but I assume the editor reassembled it from the available Kistner parts.
harrisonreed wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:49 pm A lot of scores on IMSLP are Kalmus plates with bogus "renewed" copyright notices. You can copyright the new date, and editor notes, but not the underlying sheet music -- especially if you didn't even change the plate at all.
Kalmus built their entire business model on buying engraving plates or making photography reproductions of works in the public domain to provide low cost material that wasn't easily available before the Internet. They have published very very few new editions, so in most cases there is no such thing as "Kalmus plates" — usually the kalmus editions have the original plate numbers from the original publisher at the bottom. In most jurisdictions that doesn't meet the threshold of originality to qualify for any copyright at all. Making a transcription from, reprinting, or actually just photocopying an edition that itself was just a reprint does not infringe on any copyright as long as the orignal print (i.e. the Breitkopf or whatever 19th century edition Kalmus reprinted) is public domain. Of course it also doesn't create new copyright either.
Maximilien Brisson
www.maximilienbrisson.com
Lecturer for baroque trombone,
Hfk Bremen/University of the Arts Bremen
User avatar
LeTromboniste
Posts: 1019
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 7:22 am
Location: Sion, CH

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by LeTromboniste »

Sorry about the tangent here.
harrisonreed wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:49 pm Yeah. I don't know what edition that is. The one people played through most of the 1900's was orchestrated by ... Armand Rossin? Something like that. Aidan interviewed Christian Lindberg recently and he talks about it. The Lindberg orchestration is beautiful and he made changes that made it appealing to the modern orchestras of his day (early 80s). Trying to promote himself with the older edition didn't work because no orchestra wanted to play such a badly orchestrated version. I say "his day" but his orchestration is still the best. The woodwind parts are so nice.
Armin Rosin is the name you were looking for, but I don't know of any orchestration he made. He recorded it with the original David orchestration in the early 80's, and certainly even if he did make an orchestration, it would have been too late to be the one played the most through the 1900's, since he was born in 1939 and became a professional musician in the 60's.

I'm not sure I would characterize Lindberg's orchestration as better (or worse) than the original, or the original "badly orchestrated". The original is quite well orchestrated, and certainly in a style that is both typical of the time and displays David's personal idioms.

Lindberg's version is just quite different. He darkened the wind writing quite a bit by taking out a lot of the flute and oboe lines. It's funny you mention the woodwind parts being so nice, because almost everything interesting he gives them is the same in the original, but he has them play much less and the strings much more than the original. That is sometimes effective at lightening up the textures without sacrificing anything important in tutti moments, but other times I find it a bit sad when it completely changes the composition, for example the second movement is very different when the winds have the main role, instead of being mostly just strings the whole time, or other passages where there's a originally a dialogue between the strings and winds, replaced with just the strings playing continuously. He changed the character and dynamic shape of several sections, I assume to fit his phrasing concept of the trombone part, but it sometimes completely reverts the composer's intention. Some phrases have new rhythmic accompaniments where the original is slow-moving and lyrical, or the opposite, countermelodies or rhythmic stuff in the strings are replaced by harmonic pads. Often I can understand why he changed it given how he plays the trombone part, but it's not inherently better or worse than the original. There's two or three horn lines that suddenly stick out as unidiomatic for the 1830's (and aren't much more effective than the oiriginal clarinet or bassoon line). Almost every time there's a crescendo he orchestrates it by building up entries (strings only, adding horns, adding low woodwinds, adding oboes and flutes at the very end), which can be very effective, but can also very quickly become predictable and cliché. His orchestration is different between the exposition (i.e. 1st movement) and recap (i.e. 3rd movement) in a way that isn't really idiomatic of the 1830s, or that particularly makes sense musically. Generally, there are moments where his version is very interesting and frankly more effective than the original, and it does have somewhat more forward drive, but he also took out a lot of nice orchestral moments to have more room as the soloist.

It is a nice orchestration. I absolutely love his recording (which is the best available IMO) and his orchestration works very well and compliments his vision of the solo part. BUT, I'm annoyed with his attempts at justifying it by claiming the only available orchestration was not original (it was) and so poor it was unusable (it wasn't), or that he had to reconstruct the orchestration after the only orchestral material was lost in a fire (which he still claims on his website, despite the fact that the first edition is now on IMSLP and people have recorded and performed with that orchestration both before and after he rewrote it - also it's pretty obvious he had access to the material and not only to a piano score, because his version does have entire sections that are essentially copy-pasted from the original). For whatever reason he didn't like David's writing, and wanted an arrangement that supported his own musical ideas for the trombone part, and that's fine, that's his prerogative as a soloist, and it's a public domain work so he can do whatever he wants with it, but then he should just come out and say so and it should be clearly presented as an arrangement, not trying to pass it as a "reconstruction".

I'd be really curious to hear him perform it with the original orchestration.
Maximilien Brisson
www.maximilienbrisson.com
Lecturer for baroque trombone,
Hfk Bremen/University of the Arts Bremen
HowardW
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri May 11, 2018 5:22 am

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by HowardW »

LeTromboniste wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 1:44 am The parts on IMSLP are the original 19th century Kistner edition, I assume from a Kalmus reprint.
I don't know is the parts on IMSLP are of the Kalmus reprint. But I do know that a pristine second impression of the original edition of the parts is available on the website of the Staatsbibliothek Berlin.

Howard
timothy42b
Posts: 1467
Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2018 5:51 am
Location: central Virginia

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by timothy42b »

BGuttman wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:04 pm Thanks for that. We had a young person who wanted to play it with my orchestra and he had to play something else because the parts were only available as rental. Now I have a set.
I heard a young person play this at a master class at ATW back a year or so, and the master teacher made an interesting comment.

He addressed some rhythmic variations that he said might sound like a good interpretation but were important to avoid. Basically he said nobody would ever play this for an audience; the only reason you'll ever play it is as an audition piece, and there you have to be extra careful to demonstrate extreme rhythmic accuracy.
Bach5G
Posts: 2270
Joined: Sat Apr 07, 2018 6:10 pm

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by Bach5G »

Isn’t there a YT of Joe playing this?
Posaunus
Posts: 3424
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:54 pm
Location: California

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by Posaunus »

Bach5G wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 12:06 pm Isn’t there a YT of Joe playing this?
User avatar
BGuttman
Posts: 5897
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2018 7:19 am
Location: Cow Hampshire

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by BGuttman »

timothy42b wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 11:50 am
BGuttman wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:04 pm Thanks for that. We had a young person who wanted to play it with my orchestra and he had to play something else because the parts were only available as rental. Now I have a set.
I heard a young person play this at a master class at ATW back a year or so, and the master teacher made an interesting comment.

He addressed some rhythmic variations that he said might sound like a good interpretation but were important to avoid. Basically he said nobody would ever play this for an audience; the only reason you'll ever play it is as an audition piece, and there you have to be extra careful to demonstrate extreme rhythmic accuracy.
I think that teacher was full of beans. Lots of 1st chair players do a solo on the David. Very tuneful, easy on the patrons. I remember hearing performances over the radio before Alessi and Lindberg were famous.
Bruce Guttman
Merrimack Valley Philharmonic Orchestra
"Almost Professional"
timothy42b
Posts: 1467
Joined: Tue Mar 27, 2018 5:51 am
Location: central Virginia

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by timothy42b »

I find it more listenable than many of the standard trombone concerti. So I was a little surprised. His point on rhythmic accuracy in an audition was probably worth making, though.
User avatar
Burgerbob
Posts: 4530
Joined: Mon Apr 23, 2018 8:10 pm
Location: LA
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by Burgerbob »

The David is THE audition piece for almost any tenor audition you care to name. His point stands, it needs to be correct before it should be anything else for most students. There's a video of Alessi correcting someone's rhythms in it in a masterclass if you want to watch.

And, probably because of that fact, you'd be hard pressed to find a professional that actually wants to play the piece in concert.
Aidan Ritchie, LA area player and teacher
CalgaryTbone
Posts: 1049
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 1:39 pm

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by CalgaryTbone »

I have played the David - with my orchestra, with a university band, and on many auditions. The rhythm is an important ingredient in any performance of it. You can use some rubato in your interpretation in any of those circumstances, but it needs to be a rubato that is grounded in good rhythm - some time at the occasional cadence, or perhaps a slight accelerando for a more exciting passage.

I've also taught the piece to a lot of students, and rhythm is the main issue that we end up addressing. Keeping steady in the technical passages, not dragging in the slow sections, and just delivering the dotted eighths & sixteenths vs. the triplets in the main theme are often the main culprits on this front.

In an audition, the committee really wants to hear good rhythm from the candidates, but they also want to hear some musicality. Judicious, well-placed rubato can show that, along with variety of dynamics and articulations. If you're lucky enough to ever play it as a soloist with a professional orchestra, you'll likely only get an hour of rehearsal time - 2 hours at most. Over the top rubato choices will just make for a performance that's not together, and in my opinion, also makes the piece sound cheesy. A lot of music can be made in a piece like the David by being subtle with your changes to the rhythm and time, and use changes to your tone color instead to keep the audiences' interest.

Jim Scott
User avatar
harrisonreed
Posts: 4494
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2018 12:18 pm
Location: Fort Riley, Kansas
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by harrisonreed »

I understand if it is an audition or competition piece, and the jury is looking for reasons to cut someone, but I'm honestly tired of the stilted, mechanical interpretation of the initial rhythm that I hear so often. Teachers were raised on the belief that this is the end all be all rhythm that you will be judged by, and so they beat the rhythm into their students' heads. And we end up with the dotted eighth figure being taken way too far (and thus not the correct rhythm), or played metronome straight (and thus unmusical).

It's like a culture of pedagogical fear over one dang rhythm in one specific piece. How unfortunate. You could play the best, most pleasing interpretation of the piece but you're in for eternal damnation if you didn't play that rhythm like a robot.

What a narrow view. If someone played it like Lindberg in David's day, I doubt he would have cared if the rhythm was more on the triplet side.
CalgaryTbone
Posts: 1049
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 1:39 pm

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by CalgaryTbone »

We'll just have to disagree on this. The orchestra (or band/piano, etc,) plays the same rhythm multiple times. I think there's room to "stylize" it, playing it a bit closer to the triplet that follows than the exact dotted eighth/sixteenth rhythm, but if it's not consistent - you will never have the accompaniment match it. Good rhythm never sounds "stilted' to me - just good! By the way, I think Lindberg plays it well - and as I remember (it's been a while since I listened to his recording), his rhythm is good - some rubato, but done in a way that would be easy to play with.
User avatar
paulyg
Posts: 684
Joined: Thu May 17, 2018 12:30 pm

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by paulyg »

harrisonreed wrote: Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:57 pm I understand if it is an audition or competition piece, and the jury is looking for reasons to cut someone, but I'm honestly tired of the stilted, mechanical interpretation of the initial rhythm that I hear so often. Teachers were raised on the belief that this is the end all be all rhythm that you will be judged by, and so they beat the rhythm into their students' heads. And we end up with the dotted eighth figure being taken way too far (and thus not the correct rhythm), or played metronome straight (and thus unmusical).

It's like a culture of pedagogical fear over one dang rhythm in one specific piece. How unfortunate. You could play the best, most pleasing interpretation of the piece but you're in for eternal damnation if you didn't play that rhythm like a robot.

What a narrow view. If someone played it like Lindberg in David's day, I doubt he would have cared if the rhythm was more on the triplet side.
The way my teacher put it to me:

Dotted-eighth + sixteenths and triplets are very close in rhythm, but very different in feel. The former should feel like a pickup into the next beat, the latter should always feel like a distinct beat. Maybe a few mouth-breathing tenured committee members would look for metronomic precision, but more likely the majority (and audience members) are looking for an artistic and faithful communication of what is on the page. The sixteenth note should be felt as part of the second half of the motif, and serves to accent the G, emphasizing the major tonality.

The way the candidate handles this rhythm does have implications for how they will perform in an orchestra. It is sometimes a headache to achieve a uniform style across a section with these kinds of subdivided rhythms. As an example, consider the first movement of Tchaik 4. The 9/8 waltz is a triplet meter, and most of the subdivisions are triplets. However, the offset melody (starts on beat 2 of 9) includes several dotted-eighth/sixteenth subdivisions. It's almost impossible to play those with uniform metronomic precision across the orchestra, and ultimately the distinction between that and a triplet subdivision would likely not be audible to anybody. However, by "breaking the beam" between the dotted eighth and the sixteenth, and phrasing the sixteenth as a part of the next beat, a much stronger feel is achieved, and it's WAYYY easier to place everything together (it's also far easier to feel the melody that way, and helps with the weird offset).

Edit: BTW everyone, Tchaikovsky 4 is the subject of tonight's youtube premier of the SFS Keeping Score documentaries. Check it out!
Paul Gilles
Aerospace Engineer & Trombone Player
User avatar
Matt K
Verified
Posts: 3945
Joined: Tue Mar 20, 2018 10:34 pm
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by Matt K »

On a somewhat related note... there is a rather large horn solo in a work I can't remember at the moment. The principal horn has the solo early in one movement and then, note-for-note, is repeated by the 2nd horn later in the piece. William Caballero was subbing somewhere before his tenure at the PSO and the principal horn playing just gave the solo to him to play both times. After the concert, the conductor complimented William on his ability to match their principal's interpretation of the solo perfectly, which "seldom matches so perfectly the first solo".

Point being that really the only way to get something so precise across an orchestra is with a recording session. We can be extremely pedantic about that particular rhythm but at the end of the day only someone with a score is really going to notice and despite it being passed around the orchestra there are invariably going to be perception differences as even really seasoned pros of the same instrument have difficulty sounding exactly like another player even within a few minutes of one another let alone when a rhythm like this is passed around so frequently.
User avatar
harrisonreed
Posts: 4494
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2018 12:18 pm
Location: Fort Riley, Kansas
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by harrisonreed »

Paul, I'm not saying to play the rhythm wrong, or that it's ok to liberally misinterpret the rhythm. Please don't misunderstand. I don't play the rhythm incorrectly, or advocate that anyone does. But usually when students do play this piece, especially in auditions, that rhythm is the LEAST of there worries, and it seems to me that they were too focused on accuracy, and not at all focused on telling a story to the audience.

I guess I'm depressed and disappointed that this great thread came up and we were talking about editions and wind parts and interpretations, which is great, but it seems impossible to discuss the piece without referencing it as "for auditions only" and talking about "extreme rhythmic accuracy". That nonsense pedagogical view is why classical music is losing touch with people who might enjoy it and pay for it if it were more fun/interesting/thought-provoking.

For many teachers (and therefore their students) it's:

"Oh, David Concerto? Dotted-eigth sixteenths!"

To me it would be:

"Oh there is a beautiful line that you get to take over from an amazing horn solo in this piece. Let's look at that part!"
CalgaryTbone
Posts: 1049
Joined: Thu May 10, 2018 1:39 pm

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by CalgaryTbone »

Personally, I don't think rhythm and a beautiful line are at the expense of each other - I think anyone who plays this piece needs both. Instead of rhythm, perhaps I should have used the word "pulse". The first theme in the 1st (and 3rd) movement has a strong march-like feel to it. It needs to have a strong pulse to it that is a major part of the style, and therefore, musicality of the piece.
User avatar
harrisonreed
Posts: 4494
Joined: Fri Aug 17, 2018 12:18 pm
Location: Fort Riley, Kansas
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by harrisonreed »

CalgaryTbone wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 10:10 pm Personally, I don't think rhythm and a beautiful line are at the expense of each other - I think anyone who plays this piece needs both. Instead of rhythm, perhaps I should have used the word "pulse". The first theme in the 1st (and 3rd) movement has a strong march-like feel to it. It needs to have a strong pulse to it that is a major part of the style, and therefore, musicality of the piece.
I certainly haven't said that they are - that's again, not the point I was making, or what I was talking about...

I'm pulling out of this part of the discussion. It was good reading the info about the different editions and publishers, to be sure!
User avatar
LeTromboniste
Posts: 1019
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 7:22 am
Location: Sion, CH

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by LeTromboniste »

harrisonreed wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:55 pm Paul, I'm not saying to play the rhythm wrong, or that it's ok to liberally misinterpret the rhythm. Please don't misunderstand. I don't play the rhythm incorrectly, or advocate that anyone does. But usually when students do play this piece, especially in auditions, that rhythm is the LEAST of there worries, and it seems to me that they were too focused on accuracy, and not at all focused on telling a story to the audience.

I guess I'm depressed and disappointed that this great thread came up and we were talking about editions and wind parts and interpretations, which is great, but it seems impossible to discuss the piece without referencing it as "for auditions only" and talking about "extreme rhythmic accuracy". That nonsense pedagogical view is why classical music is losing touch with people who might enjoy it and pay for it if it were more fun/interesting/thought-provoking.

For many teachers (and therefore their students) it's:

"Oh, David Concerto? Dotted-eigth sixteenths!"
I agree so much. I always thought it's a shame that it's dumped onto students' laps so early in certain parts of the world. I think it's a much subtler piece musically than most 15, 16, 17 year-olds (and probably quite a few older students too) can do justice to. It becomes a pedagogical tool and an overplayed, boring piece in the eyes of many.
Maximilien Brisson
www.maximilienbrisson.com
Lecturer for baroque trombone,
Hfk Bremen/University of the Arts Bremen
bcschipper
Posts: 203
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2018 11:52 pm
Location: California
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by bcschipper »

BGuttman wrote: Mon Apr 06, 2020 7:04 pm Thanks for that. We had a young person who wanted to play it with my orchestra and he had to play something else because the parts were only available as rental. Now I have a set.
But the score is on ismpl, just the parts.
norbie2018
Posts: 892
Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2018 6:10 am

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by norbie2018 »

harrisonreed wrote: Wed Apr 08, 2020 5:55 pm

I guess I'm depressed and disappointed that this great thread came up and we were talking about editions and wind parts and interpretations, which is great, but it seems impossible to discuss the piece without referencing it as "for auditions only" and talking about "extreme rhythmic accuracy". That nonsense pedagogical view is why classical music is losing touch with people who might enjoy it and pay for it if it were more fun/interesting/thought-provoking.
That "extreme rhythmic accuracy' you are poo-pooing is essential for a quality ensemble performance in any genre, from western-swing to rock-a-billy to classical music. You cannot have a good performance without it.

Not so nonsensical when you consider that it is a basic element of most music making.
bcschipper
Posts: 203
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2018 11:52 pm
Location: California
Contact:

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by bcschipper »

Christian Lindberg writes on http://www.tarrodi.se/cl/ruta.asp?show=15
"...The piece received its US premiere in 1923 by Cincinati Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Reiner, but since then the original orchestra material has been lost. In 1985 this was reconstructed by Christian Lindberg, based on an existing piano reduction, and Christian Lindberg has also composed a specific cadenza for this Edition on Edition Tarrodi."

It is wrong in two regards:

1. It must have been US premiered much earlier. It has been played earlier at least on April 14, 1866, by Mr. F. Letsch in Brooklyn (The Brooklyn Union, April 16, 1866) with the Philharmonic Society Orchestra conducted by Carl Bergmann (The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 16, 1866) and on December 22, 1866, by Mr. H. Braun in Chicago (Chicago Tribune, December 21 and 22, 1866) conducted by H. Balatka. 1866 is also the year in which the David Concertino had been published by Kistner in Leipzig.

2. Joseph Serafin Alschausky, principal trombone of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, brought a full set of parts to the US in 1923. He became principal trombone of the Cincinnati Symphony in 1923 and performed with them David Concertino under Fritz Reiner on November 18, 1923 (Cincinnati Enquirer November 11, 17, 18, 19, 1923). I speculate that when he left the Cincinnati Symphony in 1924, he took the whole set with him. His successor at the conservatory, Kohlmann, had a student Norman Pilgrim, who performed it Richmond, Indiana, in April 1924. We can read in a local newspaper (Palladium-Item, April 30, 1924): "... Much difficulty has been experienced in securing the music for the number as there is said to be only one manuscript of it in the country. Pupils of the Harmony classes of the high school copied the manuscript which was somewhat damaged in the recent fire."

May be this is where the heirloom saying that the orchestral material has been lost comes from. And may be this is why some are saying that the orchestration of the "original" is not good.

Does anyone know about F. Letsch (New York) or H. Braun (Chicago) who performed it in 1866?
stewbones43
Posts: 218
Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2018 5:11 am
Location: Somerset, UK

Re: David Concertino for Tenor or Bass Trombone.

Post by stewbones43 »

What an amazing place this forum is!
On Monday of this week I asked my simple question about the David Concertino. I did contemplate sending a PM to Blast/Fossil as I consider him to be an acknowledged authority on all things bass trombone but I thought it might be an invasion of privacy, so I posted here first. By the end of Monday I had received 2 replies, one suggesting that the Bass Trombone part is probably just a straight transposition and the other stating quite definitely that it is so. Thanks Bruce and Dennis. Job done.
But no. since then there have been 24 other posts, none of them answering my question but all giving opinions (expert or otherwise I don't know) on other aspects of the piece. It has proved interesting and perhaps enlightening reading, I don't know enough about the posters to work who knows what they are talking about and who talks about what they think they know about! Hope I will learn soon.
Should have PM-ed Chris.

Cheers and stay safe

Stewbones
Conn 36H(Pitched in D/A)
B&H Sessionair
Besson 10-10
Conn 74H
Yamaha YSL-641 with Yamaha Custom Slide
Conn 88H Gen II with Conn SL4747 Slide
Besson Academy 409
Rath/Holton/Benge Bb/F/G or Gb/Eb or D Independent Bass
Post Reply

Return to “Performance”