Posted by keating johnson on November 30, 2002 at 14:10:27:
In Reply to: R. Strauss Serenade Op.7 posted by Darren on November 29, 2002 at 23:55:20:
OK, ha ha. From experience as a tuba player and as a conductor who has conducted this tune way too many times over the years here are my recommendations: absolutely play the part down an octave---except that you will find that some of the softer passages will blend better up an octave depending on the ensemble's strengths or weaknesses (especially if the 2nd bassoon cannot produce enough sound. Fred Fennel's recording used contra and string bass [old Eastman recording] and I have done the piece with string bass and tuba. The tuba in this case doubles only in the louder sections. The final written low Eb works with re-tuned string bass [lowering the E string to Eb] and was typically done this way even under von Bulow, who conducted the first performance. Netherlands Wind Ensemble did some of this in a live performance I heard many years ago at the national Wind Ensemble Conference at Yale. They did Op. 4 this way as well. String bass and tuba combined works very well--whereas tuba and contrabassoon or tuba alone lack both the strength of the former and too much strength of the latter.