Posted by Rick Denney on January 21, 2002 at 13:47:26:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Catelinet Vaughan Williams Recording posted by Richard on January 17, 2002 at 18:27:56:
I hear what you are saying about historical standards. But I suspect that Bill Bell or a young Arnold Jacobs would have satisfied a much higher standard on this work had they had the first shot at it, even in years preceding its premiere. The standard of play on Bell's much earlier recordings, for example, greatly exceed this example in quality, it seems to me.
And Fletcher played the same work perhaps 15 or 20 years later (I don't remember the dates). Things must have really changed in those two decades--his performance is still the standard we use today--despite the 25 or 30 years that have passed since then.
The tuba part for some orchestral works is harder than the Concerto, at least in technical terms. I wonder what difficulties must have been faced by the tubist during the premiere of Vaughan Williams's Fourth Symphony, for example, which predated this first recording of the Concerto by 20 years. That part is monstrously difficult.
Rick "who agrees that performance standards have come a long way, but that long?" Denney