Posted by Wade (long, sorry) on April 28, 2003 at 15:43:37:
In Reply to: V.Williams MVT 3 question posted by Jim L on April 27, 2003 at 17:38:44:
Jim:
This is a rather hairy subject in the tuba world. The VW is full of misprinted notes and misunderstood markings. The score (as included with the rental parts) has errors. The MS has errors. The tuba/piano edition has errors. It is all very curious to our little community and open to (unfortunately, a LOT of) debate.
I have seen TWO manuscripts — one in the hand of Vaughan Williams himself, and one produced later by the LSO's Librarian after the premier (or so I was led to believe). This second MS was supposedly created in order to incorporate all of the changes made during the initial rehearsals; it was supposedly this MS that was sent to the publisher.
What did I REALLY see? I do not know, in all honesty.
Was the story that I was told accurate? Well, there IS another MS out there; I have seen it. But what was the origin of the second MS? The story might be bogus; or not.
The full-sized MS that I own does NOT have the high A flats in the first cadenza. But the other one DOES (I studied it a great deal in school). It was a small, published study score that was unfortunately stolen from the UNT library some years after I left in 1993.
So I am not sure which MS score I have. I got a copy of it from our Music Director when it was programmed on our Chamber series five years ago. And I tend to believe that it is the later, altered copy, as I do not think that Oxford would publish the manuscript as the Autograph Edition when it was not so. And the one that I own is NOT the same as the version that I studied in the library years ago. That would mean that the one that I have is the "LSO" version (for lack of a better name).
Can anyone corroborate this tale of mine? Or have I just created another Urban Legend?
Oh, and Jim — the MS that I have in front of me (no high A flats in mvt I) has the note in question as a D, not a Db. Since the tuba is unaccompanied on that beat, we are prevented from making a simple harmonic check. HOWEVER — After that line is over, the same ten-note figure is repeated in the flute, piccolo, oboe, clarinets, and violins with a Db WITHOUT EXCEPTION. So I have always played that ten-note figure with the D flatted. This is consistent with the type of fine research found in the T.U.B.A. Journal article about this very topic from back in 1985. It is the same reasoning found in the correction to both the MS and the solo part for one and two bars before #2 in the first movement.
This topic will cause your head to spin. Everyone making a thorough study of this piece (with all of the various sources) ends up having to defend each little change using some opinion and common sense. This is, in part, due to all of the misprints found in the actual MS. Each "corrected" version of the score or solo part contain new errors to replace the old ones. So we have to do a bit of guesswork to make up for the fact that Oxford University Press has failed to give us an error-free score that is as close to the manuscript as possible while eliminating the more obvious misprints.
Study the full score in manuscript form if you get the chance. It is interesting.
Happy hunting!
Wade "watching this dog chase its tail for many years" Rackley