Posted by Richard on February 24, 2003 at 23:47:21:
In Reply to: Least liked tuba part posted by GC on February 24, 2003 at 21:35:02:
So far no one has mentioned Debussy's Jeux. Perhaps due to being rarely played even by major orchestras. It's a very late Debussy piece, a tour de force of formal writing where in the span of about 15 through composed minutes, no themes or motifs are repeated until the very end, when the piece closes with the opening figure. Written for a ballet in which a game of tennis becomes a metaphor on sexual passion. It's brilliant. There's only one problem for tuba players. The piece has one note. Actually two. But it's the same note played twice, low C during the most dense orchestration in all of Debussy, about 2/3s of the way through. Waves of sexual passion, I suppose. But not much fun with all that great music swirling around, and no real payoff for us. Kind of like being out on a date that doesn't come off quite as you had planned.
Second place in hated tuba parts - Dvorak 8th. More "notes" to play than Jeux, but except for that exposed D, and that nice G major chord early in the first movement, the part seems like a mindless afterthought. I dislike it even more than New World.