Posted by Joe S. on January 12, 2000 at 09:25:30:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: John Williams Concerto posted by Barry Guerrero - part II on January 11, 2000 at 02:41:36:
I'm not "lettin' you have it". :-) Like I said, John Fletcher made me love the piece -through his performance - enough for me to LEARN (not just memorize - I could stand up and play it today.) all three movements.
The second movement is a pretty little harmonica piece that Ralph Vaughan Williams had previously written for a friend, and it was encased in (what I guess he thought to be) some "masculine-sounding" tuba stuff for a first movement and some "furious-sounding-but-more-technical-in-the-strings-than-in-the-solo-part third movement."
The orchestration of the Vaughan Williams is quite heavy. When I have performed it, I have had to throw dynamics out the window, and when I've heard other fine players play it LIVE with good orchestras, I've heard the same problem. I'm not sure that Vaughan Williams had enough confidence in the tuba to write a concerto for it that didn't involve a lot of "help" from the orchestra. After all even right after he wrote it the first performer simplified some of the arpeggios and many of the articulations. Compare the original manuscript rental score to even the "re-re-corrected" Oxford printed part. (There just weren't too many known Bobo/Cooley/Sheridan/etc. types running around visable in the 1950's.)
I am NOT suggesting at all that V.W. "sandbagged" this commission, either. (He was VERY old when he wrote it.) Richard Strauss wrote his oboe concerto in 1945, the year of his death, and oboists are mighty proud of that work.