Klaus, Thanks for more or less confirming my cimbasso sighting. Also, thanks for the other comments and information. I wasn't particularly holding this video for praise as a great artistic achievement, but there were several interesting aspects to it. I remember how much I hated "Fifth of Beethoven" when it first appeared while I was in music school, but I guess I have mellowed a little bit in the last 40 years and I did enjoy seeing this somewhat misguided, but well thought out (IMNSHO) arrangement.
I hope it didn't seem that I was pointing to Norway as being unique in its blend of nationalities playing in its ensembles. I was, in fact intending the opposite. It seems altogether wide-spread across most of the world. When I see touring orchestras at Carnegie Hall around half a dozen times a year, it seems that only the Russian and Japanese groups have rosters drawn from the small area near its home base. At least that is what I conclude from reading the names of the players. This has pushed the overall standards up, I believe, so I can't say that it is a bad thing altogether. Still, to my ears at least, something has been changed in sound and I think the growing internationalism has been accompanied by homogenization and a blandness rooted in the valuing of perfection over style. Thanks again and my best, Peter H. ================================================================================================== Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2011 09:43:06 -0700 (PDT) From: Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Hornlist] Something not related to tonguing or scams To: The Horn List <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 First of all: I am strongly biased against this arrangement, which I find boring. So I may come out unfair. And I am not Norwegian, even if I was in the middle of guiding a talented young Norwegian tubist friend, who does not fit entirely with the non-musical elements of a stiff education system. Just had sent the last mail. The video appears being by a combination of two ensembles. The Norwegian radio light orchestra, which has double woodwinds, 4-3-3-1 brasses, and chamber orchestra strings. And then the salsa band of the arranger. To me the said valved trombone look-alike actually is a cimbasso. I cannot tell the pitch for sure, as I cannot see the amount of tubing in the body. But from the length of the 1st and 5th loops I would assume it is in F with a set up very similar to a very common set-up of German style F tubas augmented with a very useful trigger for the 5th slide. The valve loops are distributed very much like with a 5 valve single Bb of the Sansone type (my own sample is a very well in tune Hoyer engraved B&S to circumvent a contract about exclusive distribution in Denmark - GDR makers cheated a lot on their own distributors). The 4 first valves have these intervals: 1/1 - 1/2 - 3/2 - 5/2. Where the horn stopping valve normally has a loop equal to about 3/4 step the tuba 5th valve normally has a 5/4 step loop. Not to be used on its own. The point is that the 4th + 5th loops shall lover the tuba a perfect fifth. As for multi ethnicity: I see a lot of Asians in some American orchestras also. The few ones I know of here have either been adopted from early childhood or have married Danes. We have very few musicians directly out of Africa, but during the Vietnam war a lot of American jazz musicians came here. Strict drug laws in the US also made some come here. Most were somewhat older than me and most are dead by now. And now we fight the same wars as the US and our drug laws have been tightened also. I welcome the latter more than the former. <snip> _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
