TromboneChat

Our local community orchestra is having a fun year. We have just done Rhapsody in Blue and Schumann 4th Symphony and in the new year, our first concert has Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and Shostakovich's 1st Symphony.
I have just been checking the Shostakovich on IMSLP and am a bit confused by the writing in the trombone III part. Many of the lower parts are written with "8-------" marked, suggesting that they should be played an octave higher. Is this correct, and, if so, is it a part for a 3rd tenor trombone or is it still a bass trombone part?
This may be nit-picking, but I think that an amateur orchestra should try its best to do what a top professional orchestra would do.
Any help would be more than welcome.

Cheers

Stewbones43

Sorry, my earlier post was the Trombone 1 part.

Looking at Trombone 3 there are a few 8va markings meaning to raise an octave. Looking at the score, these parts are actually written an octave above your part. I would honor the 8va markings as "up an octave". Check with the conductor to make sure.

I've played this, most of the part was in bass clef with a couple in alto. I don't remember any octave markings.

The (1927) copy on IMSLP is all in bass clef (though the score is in alto clef for all 3 trombones). You may have played a cleaned-up edition.

One of the times I played it there was a really weird section in the bass trombone part where it was quite low in bass clef with that same marking to play certain parts up an octave. I'm forgetting a lot of the particulars cause it was twenty years ago, but there's definitely an edition floating around out there with some of that in the bass part.

stewbones43 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2024 4:22 pm is it a part for a 3rd tenor trombone or is it still a bass trombone part?

No one has addressed this part of the question yet. I'm guessing most people play it on bass, because that's who orchestras hire & tenure. But I don't know for sure. Or what Shostakovich expected.

AtomicClock wrote: ↑Wed Dec 11, 2024 11:01 am

stewbones43 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2024 4:22 pm is it a part for a 3rd tenor trombone or is it still a bass trombone part?

No one has addressed this part of the question yet. I'm guessing most people play it on bass, because that's who orchestras hire & tenure. But I don't know for sure. Or what Shostakovich expected.

Overly-broad, generalized, and inaccurate statement from music history: Some Russian music in the late 19th C. and the early 20th C. is from the French tradition where three tenors were common, while some follows the German tradition of two tenors and bass, or alto, tenor and bass.

I don’t know what Shostakovitch had in mind. The different, conflicting instructions could be a copyist’s, publisher’s, or printer’s error. I’ve never had a conductor express a preference for tenor or bass, so long as the part is covered. It can be played with three tenors, but most modern orchestras play it with 2 tenors and a bass. Talk to the section leader, and if there’s still ambiguity or disagreement, then ask the conductor. Or… just play what you want…

It's definitely a bass part from what I remember.

stewbones43 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 10, 2024 4:22 pm I have just been checking the Shostakovich on IMSLP and am a bit confused by the writing in the trombone III part. Many of the lower parts are written with "8-------" marked, suggesting that they should be played an octave higher.

I've played that edition before, and the 8va markings are definitely correct. It is quite annoying to read!

My working theory is that it's a result of how the part was copied from the score. Where 3rd trombone is in bass clef in the score (usually when playing with the tuba), that gets copied into the part in the correct octave. Where 3rd trombone is in alto clef in the score, the copyist realised that they could just shift the notes down a ledger line and then write '8va' to get to bass clef.

I'm playing it again next year and am hoping for a bass/alto clef edition of the part!

Mike

There are two editions commonly used.

The first is by Muzsektor and is evidently copied by hand. It dates from approximately 1927. It exists in a Kalmus reprint.

The second is by Anglo-Soviet Music Press and is typeset rather than hand copied. It is this edition that includes the 8va indications.

The older, hand copied part is more reliable.

In the first three symphonies, Shostakovich was thinking more along the lines of three trombones rather than 2+1. This explains the very high writing in Symphony No. 3, for example, which ascends to high C in unison with the 1st and 2nd.

EdwardSolomon wrote: ↑Thu Dec 12, 2024 4:39 am There are two editions commonly used.

The first is by Muzsektor and is evidently copied by hand. It dates from approximately 1927. It exists in a Kalmus reprint.

The second is by Anglo-Soviet Music Press and is typeset rather than hand copied. It is this edition that includes the 8va indications.

The older, hand copied part is more reliable.

In the first three symphonies, Shostakovich was thinking more along the lines of three trombones rather than 2+1. This explains the very high writing in Symphony No. 3, for example, which ascends to high C in unison with the 1st and 2nd.

Cool! Now I know. I’ve only played the Muzsektor edition.

The idea of playing three equally-sized instruments was not uniquely French. What was special about the French practice was to use such small instruments until so late, having a tiny tenor playing even the low parts. But German-style instruments (as were used in Russia) were also frequently used in sets of equal or roughly equal size. It's just less notable because they were much bigger (some orchestras even used full sets of instruments that might elsewhere have been considered basses). Look at Mahler symphonies. The third trombone isn't always the lowest, and all trombones occasionally play below the staff. There isn't anything that particularly suggests he was thinking of the lowest trombone as a different instrument. Notably he never calls the lowest trombone "Baßposaune", except in the last movement of the 6th, where the part is a lot lower than anything else he ever wrote for trombone, and clearly written for an instrument pitched lower than Bb. A lot of the highest writing in the "bass trombone" repertoire was just written for an instrument the same size as the other trombones, so writing that high had no particular implication. I think Shostakovitch, at least early on, was probably assuming three "trombones", without further thought about "tenor" or "bass".

The idea of a bass trombone as a distinct instrument has never been universal until fairly recently. The modern distinction is entirely based on the second valve and a very widespread standardization of bore sizes, conditions that didn't exist in the time period in question here.