Posted by Re: Vienna Phil. on July 06, 2000 at 02:13:31:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: An Alpine Symphony posted by tommo on July 05, 2000 at 06:23:09:
There's probably someone who knows about this better than I. Anyway, one of the tuba players of the VPO, at least up until recently, is an American who definintely uses a CC tuba of some sort. Since the VPO is basically made up of players from the Vienna State Opera, there are at least two tuba players who trade off. It's very common for one "Vienna Phil." to be in town playing the Staats Oper (with probably lots of students sitting in), while another Vienna Phil. (probably the cream of the crop) is out playing on tour. The VPO actually plays far more concerts on tour than they do in their little shoebox of a concert hall (the Musikverein). I believe that the other tubist does use a big BBb rather often. I've never seen either player use one of those old, small Wiener F tubas. The indiginous Vienna F Horns are another matter. Their horn section uses those pretty religiously, as they're absolutely the closest thing to a natural, valveless horn in timbre. They even have a smaller Bb model of that type of horn that they'll very occasionally use. Hope this helps. I'm hoping to come out to N.Y. to see the VPO play Mahler 3 with Boulez conducting at Carnegie Hall in 2001. That should some performance! - we'll see.
Barry Guerrero