Posted by K on May 05, 2003 at 19:52:36:
In Reply to: what are oval horns? posted by andrewledford(AT)hotmai on May 05, 2003 at 19:00:37:
Oval (or for that matter also straight) Kaiserbaritonen play very different from the standard pro 3+1 piston euph. I own both types, Cerveny pre-1930 and Yamaha YEP641 respectively. To me the oval Kaiser is a much lighter creature, in sound as well in pounds. Of course the YEP641 takes a much larger mouthpiece, the Yeo signature bassbone model, over the Denis Wick 4AM for the Kaiser. But most of the difference is in the instruments themselves.
The YEP641 is much closer to my concept of the euph, but it would be hard not to enjoy the elegance, flexibility, and lightness of the Cerveny Kaiser. The better German players play them with a wonderful blend in larger sections.
I don't own an oval Tenorhorn, but I have an older style Brit baritone, a B&H Imperial from 1967. And I have tried out an oval Cerveny Tenorhorn. The Brit has much more core to its sound and a much wider dynamic range. Again the elegance of the oval Tenorhorn impressed me. It has a larger receiver than the Brit equivalent, but comes with a 12C-cupped mouthpiece. That combination makes up for some very easy playability in the range between the 8th and 16th partials. Yet I would take the Brit any day for brass band work, as it can do much more in the relevant working range. Somehow I sense, that the newer Brit baritone models come closer to the oval Tenorhörner with their wider and thinner gauge bells. I am not totally convinced by that compromise.
In Eb alto horns I also own both versions. A piston Courtois and an oval Weltklang from B&S. Here the oval one appears to be a bit broader sounding than the piston version. Actually it approaches my idea of a light alto euphonium. But it is one of my more recent acquisitions, and much work has to be done, before I will be definitive in my opinion. Alone the choice of mouthpiece will take a good deal of experimentation. The original one is a small cup on a tenor bone shank. I have tried the smaller DW bone mpcs, and now I look forward to get a Kelly 12C plastic, which might end up being my final choice.
If you want to have a look at oval instruments, then go to the index found at the top of the page linked to below here. The index should have well over 20 hyperlinks to oval instruments.
If you don't have a Yahoo account yourself, you can log in with the identity = brassphotos03 and the password = public when prompted.
The pic hopefully popping up above here shows my Cerveny Kaiserbariton.
Klaus