From: "Eric J. \"Rick\" Allen"
Subject: Re: [CB] [CB Digest]
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 12:54:24 -0600
> The first movement of "La Fiesta Mexicana" by H. Owen Reed
- after the
> opening fanfare, the melody is in the contra clarinet
doubled at the octave
> by bass clarinet. My college wind ensemble didn't
have a contra clarinet,
> so I covered this part on contrabassoon; truly a
floor-shaking,
> filling-rattling sound.
"La Fiesta Mexicana" has to be my favorite band piece, along with
"American Overture for Band", but for different reasons.
AOB has a separate string bass part, and has a really cool
French horn part (read: "features French Horn"). I have played
both.
LFM has a separate string bass part (as I recall), and has
really cool horn parts. Oh, I guess those are the same reasons!
;-) But LFM is the ONLY piece where I clamored to play the 4th
horn part -- it covers a 3-1/2 octave range! :-) From a concert D
(M9 above middle C) down to a concert G 4 ledger lines below the bass
clef staff (written as a D below the staff -- F horn parts transpose
P5th lower than written) in the 2nd mvmt. Also in the 1st(?)
mvmt, there is a pedal concert C (horn G written in the bass clef). I
was the only one of the 8 of us who could hit those notes with any
consistency whatsoever, so that always gave me a big ego boost!
Now imagine how I could have blasted those notes out if I would have
had my current horn, instead of that beat-up ol' school horn! :-)
Another nomination for low (albeit not CB) pitches (in this
case, produced by the 1st and 2nd bassoons) comes from "Pictures at an
Exhibition" (Ravel orchestration), in the "Catacombae" movement, where
the brass punctuate the "horror" of these rotting corpses, and then the
bassoons come in with that F#/B one-two punch -- man, that's eerie --
sent goosebummps down my spine every time!
Also at the end of the first "movement" of Haydn's "Creation"
oratorio, I had to detune my 4-string, no-low-C-attachment bass from an
E to a D, to accomodate the last note of the piece. I know the
conductor loved THAT NOTE, because we kept having to repeat the ending,
which wasn't all that hard! :-) Kept looking at me at the end,
too!
I tell my underlings that we in the bass section(s) have a
single responsibility, and that's to provide the goosebumps to the
audience and to ourselves. A soprano or other soloist has to work
hard to get that same effect. You KNOW when you have just seen
PERFECTION on that stage, and that does the goosebump thing like
nothing else, admittedly -- but for us in the bass and contrabass
sections, it's just a part of what we do every day -- it comes
NATURALLY to OUR register, and to our instruments! :-)
How is it possible to beat the sheer presence of a CB clarinet
in a wind ensemble? Or how else do you describe Jay Easton's
subcontrabass sax in his recordings? I'll start the nomination of
words with "AAAWWWEEESSSOOOMMMEEE"!
Peace. Out.
Eric in MN
---------------------------------------------------------
From: "Wik Bohdanowicz"
Subject: Re: [CB] [CB Digest] contrabass content
Date: Mon, 24 Jan 2005 21:20:31 -0000
So my question is: What in your
> > opinions are some of the greatest contrabass moments
in music?
Something very simple. The held over pedal Db on EEb
bass between the two versus of Deep Harmony in brass band performances.
Wik
***End of Contrabass Digest***