Posted by Rick Denney on October 08, 2001 at 20:40:05:
In Reply to: Re: Re: BBb vs.CC posted by Okay -- go on . . . . on October 08, 2001 at 19:16:23:
Helleberg played a CC tuba as early as the 1890's, as I recall from one of the last times this came up. Bell was a couple of decades after that, when the large CC tubas were already common, though certainly not ubiquitous, amond orchestral tubists.
I'm not sure there were many full-time professional tuba players in American orchestras before that time, which is why we don't seem to really know. I suspect that the Distin-style Saxhorn-derived Eb was a pretty common instrument for those who didn't us an ophicleide.
In a graphical table of 19th-century instrumentation practices, Bevan shows the ophicleide graduating directly to the large contrabass tuba in the U.S., but he provided no provenance for that information (and no detail). I think he may have left out a period of no particular unifying selection but a lot of different choices immediately following the general demise of the ophicleide.
It seems that Helleberg was the first tuba player of sufficient stature to define an approach that would be written down, and that Bell followed that approach.
So, I don't think there was a switch in history from BBb to CC. It seems to me the CC's were always there. Their popularity has grown for a variety of reasons, but gradually. 50 years ago, a BBb might be as likely as a CC, and an F as a standard instrument (ala Vinal Smith) would not be unheard of. Now, the CC is much more common, but the change was more a matter of attrition than a purposed switch. Most BBb-playing professionals retired playing BBb tubas, it seems to me, and were replaced by CC-playing tubists.
Rick "who thinks Austin hasn't played some of the better BBb's out there" Denney