Contrabass Digest
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1999-07-23

 
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 20:26:58 -0700
From: "Timothy J. Tikker" <timjt@awod.com>
Subject: Bechet's other tune
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Well, I checked my file.  Here's the story:

Years ago I saw an LP in a jazz-collector's library, on a French CBS label:  CBS 63092 Do You Like Jazz/Aimez-Vous le Jazz no. 14 -- with Armstrong & Bechet etc.  It had Mandy Make Up Your Mind and another tune with sarrusophone, but unfortunately I never wrote down the titles.  I searched for this LP but could never find one to buy.  I never heard this disc, BTW; when I finally heard Mandy it was in a Smithsonian collection LP-set of early jazz at a university library.

The collector was Journalism faculty at the University of Oregon at Eugene.  He may be retired by now, though.  Maybe someone can track him down and find out more... unfortunately, I don't remember his name.

Anyway... obviously the LP is out of print now, but perhaps the serial # can help someone locate it.

BTW, has Mandy been reissued on CD yet?

- Timothy Tikker

---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 17:32:08 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: Bechet's other tune
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

>BTW, has Mandy been reissued on CD yet?

Yes, it's on a number of SB collections.  A couple of them are listed on
the sarrusophone page (http://www.contrabass.com/pages/sarrus.html), near
the RA clip.

Grant

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant Green            gdgreen@contrabass.com
                    http://www.contrabass.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 20:39:51 -0700
From: "Timothy J. Tikker" <timjt@awod.com>
Subject: Re: Holst's Planets
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

I just happen to have an octavo study score here (new edition by Imogen Holst & Colin Matthews, Eulenberg, 1979).

The score calls for a Bass Oboe, not a Heckelphone.  Here's the full instrumentation:
 


- Timothy Tikker

---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 20:56:31 -0700
From: "Timothy J. Tikker" <timjt@awod.com>
Subject: Speaking of large orchestras...
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Also noteworthy is the orchestra required for Olivier Messiaen's last work, L'Eclairs sur l'Au-Dela (Illuminations on the Beyond), commisioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered by them under Zubin Mehta in November 1992 (I was present, as I was for the West Coast premiere by the Berkeley Symphony under Kent Nagano in September 1993):
 


total:  128 players

The work has been recorded on Deutsche Grammophon by Myung-Whung Chung & l'Orchestre de la Bastille, and on Jade (JAD C 099) by Antoni Wit & the National Polish Radio Orchestra.  This list of instruments and the total of players is from the latter CD's program booklet.

In case you're wondering what he did with all those extra high woodwinds... they're especially used in passages with birdsongs.

- Timothy Tikker

---------------------------------------------------------

From: LeliaLoban@aol.com
Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 21:09:12 EDT
Subject: Re: Phantom Tuba
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

I've enjoyed reading the hypotheses!

Heliconman's friend Deef wrote,
>  My first guess was a slipping belt in  the air-handling system on the
roof.  But something similar happened to me at my old house.   I used to hear
stange, eerie moaning sounds, on the stairs, and once it  really chilled me,
it was so frequent and loud!>   [He related how the wind rubbing a branch
against a telephone line caused the noise....]

Heliconman wrote,
>Reminds me of an old Boris Karloff radio drama called the Wailing Wall in
which a guy kills his nagging wife and bricks her up in the basement, then
starts hearing ghostly wails. After he burns the house down in fear, he finds
out it's a missing brick that the wind is blowing over that made the wailing
sound. >

The wind hypothesis sounds plausible, methinks.  The huge, warehouse-like
exhibition hall has a flat roof, with air conditioning, electronic equipment,
receiver towers and wires, including guy- wires, on top.  The fitful wind
either blowing across surfaces or causing things to rub against each other,
sometimes firmly and sometimes lightly (like playing a high harmonic on a
violin string) might well account for the consistent pitch of these noises
that "played" a fifth and sometimes an octave apart.  I think sounds would
probably carry from the roof, which probably isn't well-insulated, to judge
from the poor temperature control in there.

I'd forgotten, but my husband reminded me that years ago, we woke up in the
middle of a windy night to the tune of a "bassoon" apparently right there in
the bedroom with us.  Scared the hell out of us!  Investigation with a
flashlight traced the noise to the large old redbud tree outside the bedroom
window.  A limb had died and cracked, and made the noise by rubbing against
the edge of the metal rain gutter.

We still have one supernatural-sounding noise here.  We hear it from
downstairs, but only in winter.  It sounds as though a man with a peg-leg is
walking overhead, limping across the floor of my office in the semi-finished
attic.  Ta-THUMP.  Ta-THUMP.  Ta-THUMP.  In the morning, he walks from north
to south.  In the evening, he walks from south to north.  My small, 1947
tract house sits in what used to be the peach orchard of a big old
neighboring house, built in bits over the centuries, beginning before the
Revolutionary War.  Civil War battles took place nearby and Mosby's Raiders
were active here.  Unfortunately, we don't really have a Confederate ghost
stumping around in our attic. The mundane explanation (phooey!) is an "air
hammer" in the heat duct.  It only happens in very cold weather, when the
heat first comes on in the morning and shortly after we turn it down at
night, when the metal duct expands and contracts.  Once my attic office warms
up or cools down enough, the "walking" stops.

Lelia
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 20:49:22 -0700
From: "tubadave@jps.net" <tubadave@jps.net>
Subject: Re: [Contra digest]
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

AND DON'T FORGET A TAROGATO CHOIR. SAY 8 OR 10, SOPRANINO, SOPRANO, ALTO
& TENOR

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 14:24:45 -0400
From: FranÚois Villon <feodor@informaxinc.com>
Subject: Re:
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com
Dear Bret,

Looks like you forgot to add bassethorn, Ab sopranino clarinet, soprano
trombone, Bb flute, Eb flute, Db piccolo, contrabass and octobass
flutes, etc. BTW, a quartet of rhotophones will certainly help to
balance tam-tam section. :-)

Feodor
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Jul 1999 20:52:33 -0700
From: "tubadave@jps.net" <tubadave@jps.net>
Subject: Tarogato's
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Tarogato's
I would like to buy one. I sure as heck don't want to pay $2700 for the
one at "Lark in the Morning".
Anybody got any leads to the where-a-bouts of them?

tubadave@jps.net
---------------------------------------------------------

From: "Aaron Rabushka" <arabushk@cowtown.net>
Subject: Re: Speaking of large orchestras...
Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 22:55:54 -0500
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

L'Eclair sur l'Au délà sounds like a successor to Et Expecto Ressurectionem
Mortuorum (sp?), at least in its wind and percussion complement.

Aaron J. Rabushka
arabushk@cowtown.net
http://www.cowtown.net/users/arabushk/
 

---------------------------------------------------------

From: JolivetDVM@aol.com
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 00:26:35 EDT
Subject: Re:  Ex Lingua Mortia
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

 Yow!!! Didn't know that I was in the tuba journal!!  If I can find it
in the house, I have a VHS tape of a performance that we gave at the
Sandpoint Music Festival.  We not only played the Suite for Endangered
Instruments, but many familiar charts that featured each of us ; e.g. bass
sarrusophone was featured prominently in the Baby Elephant Walk.   Michel
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 07:32:23 -0400
From: Robert Howe <arehow@vgernet.net>
Subject: Re: Hecklephones and Sarrusophones
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

I think your professor was making fun of you for an overly-large
orchestration, and that you didn't get the joke.

No tarogatos?

Robert Howe

Bret Newton wrote:
> I have a rather strange question.  I recently showed the score of my
> symphony to a composition professor, and after taking a look at the massive
> instrumentation, and I mean massive, he candidly asked, "Where are the
> hecklephones and sarrusophones?"  I was completly taken back by this
> question and thought to myself, what if I did include these instruments.  I
> already had a bass oboe so I think I have taken care of the hecklephone.  I
> asked the bassoon professor there (Texas Tech) what he thought about the
> sarrusophone.  He said that it is a marvelous instrument that could add to
> any ensemble and would be great in a junior high band where a low reed is
> lacking.  Any way, I just wanted to see what the list's oppinion on this
> possible addition is.
> Thanks,
> Bret Newton
>
> _______________________________________________________________
> Get Free Email and Do More On The Web. Visit http://www.msn.com
> ----------------------
> end contrabass list
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 07:34:17 -0400
From: Robert Howe <arehow@vgernet.net>
Subject: Re:
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Aaron Rabushka wrote:
> Even the mighty Indiana University cheated on the heckelphone in "The
> Planets." Many orchestral composition contests stipulate a maximum
> instrumentation, and I have never seen one that allows heckelphone.

The Planets, like the several works of Delius that call for an
octave-lower oboe-like instrument, asks for bass oboe, not Heckelphone.
SOme people treat them interchangably.  Strauss always asks for
Hecklephone.

Robert Howe
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 07:41:57 -0400
From: Robert Howe <arehow@vgernet.net>
Subject: Re:
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Grant Green wrote:
> If you really want to push the envelope, include a choir of sarrusophones,
> SATBBsCb, and use it as a fifth woodwind section (after flutes, clarinets,
> oboe/bassoons, and saxophones).

Why consider oboes/bassoons as one choir?  Try this:
 


Now, where do we find the horns and players?  And who will make all
those double reeds?

Robert Howe
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 07:44:25 -0400
From: Robert Howe <arehow@vgernet.net>
Subject: Re: Tarogatos
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

tubadave@jps.net wrote:
> I would like to buy one. I sure as heck don't want to pay $2700 for the
> one at "Lark in the Morning".
> Anybody got any leads to the where-a-bouts of them?

I can sell you one.

Robert Howe
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 10:17:59 -0400
Subject: Re:
From: Michael J Effenberger <tyrthegreatandpowerful@juno.com>
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

What exactly is a rotophone?
-Mike

On Fri, 23 Jul 1999 07:41:57 -0400 Robert Howe <arehow@vgernet.net> writes:
>Grant Green wrote:
>> If you really want to push the envelope, include a choir of sarrusophones,
>> SATBBsCb, and use it as a fifth woodwind section (after flutes, clarinets,
>> oboe/bassoons, and saxophones).
>
>Why consider oboes/bassoons as one choir?  Try this:
>
>flute choir: Picc Eb 3Cfl alto bass
>oboe choir: Musette in (high) F, 2 oboes, oboe d'amour, English horn,
>bass oboe
>bassoon choir: Heckelphone, 3 bassoons, 2 contras
>clarinet choir: AbEb C 2Bb 2A FBassetto 2bass 2 CBs
>Saxophone choir: Sopranino,SATBBs
>Sarrusophone choir: SATBBsCBs
>Rothophone choir: SATB
>2 tarogatos
>
>Now, where do we find the horns and players?  And who will make all
>those double reeds?
>
>Robert Howe
>----------------------
>end contrabass list
---------------------------------------------------------

From: Heliconman@aol.com
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:05:55 EDT
Subject: Re: Speaking of large orchestras...
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

I'd be REEEEALY interested to know where he found a contrabass tuba!
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 12:37:18 -0700
Subject: Re: Speaking of large orchestras...
From: mgrogg@juno.com
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Not hard to find at all.  I have 3 or 4 of them in my studio right now.
Bass tuba signifies a small tuba in F or Eb, Contrabass is tuba in BBb or
CC.  BBb and CC are what we think of as the normal tuba.

Now it would be fun if they had a subcontrabass tuba in EEb or BBBb.

Michael Grogg

---------------------------------------------------------

From: "Bret Newton" <jbnbsn99@hotmail.com>
Subject: Re:
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 09:54:32 PDT
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Why group the hecklephone with bassoons?
Bret Newton

---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 10:10:14 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: Rothophones
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

>What exactly is a rotophone?
>-Mike

The rothophone is another conical-bore double reed instrument, invented and
popular in Italy to compete with the saxophone.  However, whereas
sarrusophones are folded up like bassoons and contras, rothophones are
folded exactly like saxophones.  They tend to look like anorexic
saxophones, having a narrower bore.  They are even more rare than
sarrusophones.  I don't know if they have any differences in fingering
between sarrusophones or saxes.  Robert, you have a few don't you?  Care to
expand?

Grant

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant Green            gdgreen@contrabass.com
                    http://www.contrabass.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 13:57:14 -0400
From: FranÚois Villon <feodor@informaxinc.com>
Subject: Re:
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

Yes, group heckelphone with terz-heckelphone and piccolo heckelphone.
Add quint- and quart-bassoons to your bassoon section.
BTW, you can add a high Bb clarinet. I'm sure Met Museum of Art will
lend one for the performance of your symphony :-)

Feodor

---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 11:34:50 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: Massive Orchestration
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

>Yes, group heckelphone with terz-heckelphone and piccolo heckelphone.
>Add quint- and quart-bassoons to your bassoon section.
>BTW, you can add a high Bb clarinet. I'm sure Met Museum of Art will
>lend one for the performance of your symphony :-)

Not to mention the fact that only *one* Eb terz heckelphone was ever made.
May as well throw in Leblanc's BBBb octocontrabass clarinet...

Grant

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant Green            gdgreen@contrabass.com
                    http://www.contrabass.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 14:44:22 -0400
From: FranÚois Villon <feodor@informaxinc.com>
Subject: High heckelphones
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com
 

Grant Green wrote:

> >Yes, group heckelphone with terz-heckelphone and piccolo heckelphone.
> >Add quint- and quart-bassoons to your bassoon section.
> >BTW, you can add a high Bb clarinet. I'm sure Met Museum of Art will
> >lend one for the performance of your symphony :-)
>
> Not to mention the fact that only *one* Eb terz heckelphone was ever made.
> May as well throw in Leblanc's BBBb octocontrabass clarinet...
>
> Grant

BTW, what about piccolo heckelphones? Where are they? Anybody has one
for sale? Was anything ever written for them?

Feodor
---------------------------------------------------------

Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 14:33:05 -0700
From: Grant Green <gdgreen@contrabass.com>
Subject: Re: High heckelphones
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

>BTW, what about piccolo heckelphones? Where are they? Anybody has one
>for sale? Was anything ever written for them?

The piccolo heckelphone is pitched in F, an octave above the english horn
(i.e., a fourth above the oboe).  Seventeen were built, the last of which
was made in 1916.  I think there *are* a few works written for them (or
including them).  I've never heard of one for sale.

Grant

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant Green            gdgreen@contrabass.com
                    http://www.contrabass.com
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
---------------------------------------------------------

From: Heliconman@aol.com
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 17:45:05 EDT
Subject: Re: Speaking of large orchestras...
Reply-To: contrabass@contrabass.com

In a message dated 7/23/99 12:49:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time, mgrogg@juno.com
writes:

> Not hard to find at all.  I have 3 or 4 of them in my studio right now.
>  Bass tuba signifies a small tuba in F or Eb, Contrabass is tuba in BBb or
>  CC.  BBb and CC are what we think of as the normal tuba.
>
>  Now it would be fun if they had a subcontrabass tuba in EEb or BBBb.
>
>  Michael Grogg
>
Okay! Guess I had my terminology screwed up. The only subcontrabass tubas I
know of are the Besson BBBb belonging to the Harvard U. Band, the BBBb
(probably a Besson) at Carl Fischer's in NYC on Bleecker Street and possibly
a EEb in the collection of Boosey & Hawkes in London, but I haven't had that
confirmed as yet.
The Harvard monster is nearly unplayable. I tried it myself. The one at
Fischer's is reputed to be unplayable as well. It's possible that the EEb was
the one used at the Hoffnung festivals. Maybe the most playable of the 3.
Thanks for the vocabulary lesson!
Cheers!
Heliconman@aol.com

 
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