Recordings of orchestral excerpts on historical instruments
As part of his doctoral research, Jack has been recording lower brass excerpts from orchestral literature on historical instruments. These recordings are not intended to imply any 'correct' ways of interpreting these works, but rather to demonstrate instruments and performance practices that may have been in place when and where they were premiered. For further information on these instruments, see The Techniques of the Tuba Playing, detailed background organological and historical contexts can also be found in Clifford Bevan’s seminal text The Tuba Family. For a playlist of the complete recordings in chronological order, click here. Other instruments being added soon include the English bass horn, valved ophicleide, late C19 bass- and contrabasstubas, and Russian tubas.
SerpentThe serpent is the earliest low-pitched labrosone (lip-reed resonating aerophone) which includes some method of creating specific, reproducible pitches. Originally developed to support the cantus firmus of a church choir, by early nineteenth century it was being used by orchestral and operatic composers attempting to strengthen their lower wind sections. The instrument used in these recordings of music from Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn and Richard Wagner is a serpent ordinare with three keys, made by Pierre Ribo in Brussels in 2018.
‘Early’ cimbassoAware of the inherent intonational instability of the serpent—the optimal size and position of the holes are significantly compromised by their need to be covered and reached by the fingers—many inventors experimented with narrower-bore upright serpents. One of the most popular was an instrument known today as the ‘early’ cimbasso (see ‘Verdi’ cimbasso below for disambiguation), with a wooden body and a metal bell. Commonly found in Italian opera houses in the early nineteenth century, it was initially referred to as a serpentone, the name cimbasso likely arising from a misreading of the abbreviation of a contemporaneous instrument, the English bass horn (corno [c.] in basso) (for more information see this paper by Renato Meucci), an instrument which was particularly popular in the military bands of Great Britain and the German states. The term was commonly used in Italy from the early 19th century onwards to refer generically to a wide variety of low brass instruments with holes, keys and / or valves. The instrument used in these recordings of music from Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo Bellini, Giuseppe Verdi and Gaetano Donizetti was built by Nicholas Perry in St Albans in 1998, copying an original by Ubaldo Luvoni from ca. 1826.
OphicleideThe first nineteenth-century lower brass invention to find wide favour with both composers and instrumentalists was the ophicleide. Invented by Jean Hilaire Asté (Halary) in 1817, keys are used to cover holes which increase proportionally in diameter as the bore of the instrument widens. Ophicleides in Bb or C are the bass instruments of the keyed bugle family, which are made entirely of metal and in a pure conical shape. Less commonly found relatives include the quinticlave (alto ophicleide) in high Eb or F, and the contrabass ophicleide in low Eb or F. Initially with nine keys and later with ten or eleven, ophicleides were particularly prevalent in France, Belgium and the UK. Though seldom written for specifically after 1850, they remained in common usage in some parts of Europe until the early twentieth century. The instrument used in these recordings of music from Hector Berlioz, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gioachino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner is an ophicleide in Bb with 11 keys, built by Wessex in ca. 2015, copying an original by Gautrot from ca. 1840.
Basstuba (mid-C19)On 12th September 1835 Berlin-based musical administrator Friedrich Wilhelm Wieprecht and inventor Johann Gottfried Moritz were granted a Prussian patent for their chromatische Baß-Tuba. Originally designed for the Prussian military bands, the Basstuba found favour with Hector Berlioz, who heard it in 1843 whilst on an extended conducting tour of the German States. His influence greatly contributed to its widespread use in central Europe by the mid-nineteenth century. Pitched in F with five valves, it is acoustically very similar to a modern F tuba, though the Berliner-Pumpen valves were soon superseded by rotary valves. The instrument used in these recordings of music from Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner and Bedrich Smetena was built by Ahlberg & Ohlsson in Stockholm in ca. 1860.
Kontrabasstuba (mid-C19)The firm of Václav Červený produced their first contrabass Bombardons in C and Bb in 1845, and patented their soon-ubiqutuous Kaiserbaß bass and contrabass tubas in 1884. However, in most nineteenth- and early twentieth-century scores it is unclear as to which exact instrument ‘contrabass tuba’ parts were was written for; in his initial sketches for Der Ring des Nibelungen Richard Wagner wrote for a saxhorn-contrabass in Eb, and later referred to the instrument as a CB Tube. The instrument used in these recordings of his works is pitched in C, built by an anonymous Bavarian manufacturer in ca. 1880.
‘Verdi’ cimbassoBy the early 1870s, Giuseppe Verdi was increasingly dissatisfied with the ‘early’ cimbasso and the ophicleide, and only allowed the bombardon into his on-stage bands. By 1881 he had aided development of a valved contrabass trombone in Bb from the manufacturer Pelitti. There after, Verdi wrote for the instrument he called a trombone basso, Pelitti called a trombone basso Verdi, was later referred to as a trombone Verdi, and nowadays is called a cimbasso or a ‘Verdi’ cimbasso. The instrument used in these recordings of music from Giuseppe Verdi, Pietro Mascagni, Giacomo Puccini and Ruggero Leoncavallo was built by Romeo Orsi in Milan between 1902-1918.
French C tubaIn 1852, Adolph Sax patented a system of six independent valves for use on his saxhorn nouveau basse. This tuning system never found widespread appeal, but by 1882 the instrument had evolved into what today is known as the ‘small French tuba in C’, which, until the late twentieth century, was commonly found in French orchestras. For more information regarding their relationship with French orchestral performance practice see this thesis by Carl Kleinsteuber. The instrument used in these recordings of music from Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, Maurice Ravel and César Franck was built by Couesnon after 1882.
English F tubaIn Vienna in 1871, Daniel Fuchs added a sixth valve to a Basstuba in order to improve intonation and aid blending with the sound of the Vienna horn. Although few of these instruments were built, when Richard Wagner was invited to England in 1877 by Hans Richter (appointed musical director in Vienna in 1875), arrangements were made for these tubas to be shipped over for the performances. Appreciation of this instrument in the UK lead to the development of the English F tuba, which, until the 1960s, was the standard orchestral tuba used in Britain. The instrument used in these recordings of music from Antonín Dvořák, Edward Elgar, Gustav Holst, Ralph Vaughan Williams and Arnold Schönberg was built by Joseph Higham in ca. 1904.