No, I am not sure. I don't know about the scores, though we had
established that the clefs in the score and parts might not agree. But
the parts I've seen are mostly in alto clef for the 1st trombone (at
least, the editions I tend to get in the small orchestras I play with
on occasion.) It is possible that I have seen early, or late, editions
that are not normal.
I have also played some versions of some works in one clef, while
another version is in another clef. Sometimes I get a movement from one
publisher, and another movement from another publisher, possibly
because the conductor liked some aspect of another edition. Perhaps a
later edition was correcting sloppy decisions in the originals (like,
for all I know, Shostakovich fully expected the parts to be copied in
the correct clef, and never verified that some music preparation person
had duplicated his clefs exactly as he had written them in the score.)
I think some of these questions are best left to specialists. I am only
conjecturing at this point as to the reasons behind these things.
My friend who has played first trombone in the Montreal Symphony
Orchestra says that he fully expects first trombone parts to appear in
alto clef, up until the 20th century, and would be severely put out if
some modern edition showed up on the stand with the wrong clef. There
are a whole set of cues that he gets from the notation that pertain to
style and instrument selection, that if they are missing, might confuse
the decisions he has to make.
This topic has come up before, and regulars on the list know that I set
great stock in providing those cues as accurately as I can, whatever
the style is. There are certain expectations, and going with them or
intentionally going against them will have an effect on the
performance.
About Shostakovich - it is entirely possible that he only used alto
clef in his scores out of convenience. There are many examples of
trombone parts doubled up on a single staff in the score, alto, tenor
or bass clef, and it is possible that he didn't consider the choice of
clef to be all that critical as long as the parts were in the correct
clef. The fact that the parts DIDN'T get put into their normal clef
might have nothing to do with him at all.
Ah, well, there's a thesis topic for some Master's student in trombone
performance!
Christopher
On Jun 21, 2006, at 1:50 PM, Lee Actor wrote:
Are you sure about Tchaik? All the scores I have at hand (Sym. 4,5,6,
Romeo
and Juliet, Capriccio Italien) have 1st and 2nd trombones in tenor
clef, 3rd
in bass clef. Of course, the parts could be different.
Odd bit of info about Shostakovich, if true (I can verify his scores
are as
you say). They had access to most scores, even contemporary Western
ones.
Strange.
Lee Actor
Composer-in-Residence and Assistant Conductor, Palo Alto Philharmonic
http://www.leeactor.com
I don't know of much RECENT music written for alto-tenor-bass
orchestra
sections, though that was overwhelmingly the case from Haydn up to
Tchakovsky or so. Tchaik, for example, is almost always played on
tenor
trombone because of the range, though it is written mostly in alto
clef.
I think we agreed that what was in the score does not represent what
the players see (one of the few exceptions to the "score matches parts
in all ways" rule.) Through the 19th century, alto-tenor-bass
instruments AND clefs on the parts were the norm, and should be
reproduced that way in authentic editions.
A curious effect happened for first part of the 20th century in
Russian
music. Shostakovich and his contemporaries were told by some teacher
that tenor trombone parts were always written in alto clef and this
misinformation was propagated from mentor to student, so for fifty
years or so it was alto clef for first AND second trombone parts, and
bass clef for third trombone. No tenor clef. Since this was obviously
an error, I don't think it would be wrong to use tenor or bass clef
for
new editions of these composers' works.
Christopher
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