Posted by AW on March 03, 2003 at 12:38:35:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Recording of an Ophicleide? posted by Tim on March 02, 2003 at 19:09:26:
Not directly. The serpent and the ophicleide are very difficult to play well. The tuba won out because it was not as difficult. It was the same with the evolution of flutes and other wind instruments. Although a very skilled musician could get a wonderful to-die-for sound, more ordinary musicians could be pretty painful to listen to.
The Boston, Massachusetts area has a very lively early music scene. Now and then, we will hear a piece using a chorus supported by a serpent or two. It's a great sonority to add to a group of voices, and contrasts nicely to the generally thinner and keener sounds of other Renaisaance instruments. I couldn't say how well those serpentists would have been doing a solo line, as the music never called for serpent solos. It's possible that the serpent is like some types of organ pipes that sound poor by themselves, but add gorgeous color to an ensemble.
Regarding the ophicleide, we get fewer chances to hear one. Although the performance of Renaissance and Baroque music on historically accurate instruments is fairly common, the same cannot be said of performances of the Classical and Romantic repertoire. I can say this: When I first tried out the ophecleide in the collection of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, even I sounded better than that audio clip. I have heard an ophecleide played delightfully well (NOT by me), to the best standards of trombone and euphonium playing. The ophicleide has a major problem compared to valved brass instruments: for higher notes only a small proportion of the instrument is used to resonate and filter the raw sound that comes from the mouthpiece. It's like the analagous problem of "throat tones" in playing the clarinet. Clarinet beginners sound (even more) terrible in that part of the instrument's range. With good players, a listener cannot hear the difference in tones produced in the clarinet's throat region, compared to others.
So there it is. An ophicleide can sound great; it's just a huge amount more work required to do so. With a tuba, one can struggle less with just getting halfway decent tones from the horn and more on learning to make music.
Allen Walker