Andrew,
Regarding the falset notes, which you call "Privileged frequencies ...
unstable ..." and imply that "A very high level of expertise" is needed
for them: I teach them to junior high students, so when they purchase a
trombone with a valve they are already used to the range below the
staff. Yes, anyone can force any note on any brass instrument, pretty
much, but these falset notes are more than that - they a specific
partial on their own, which, particularly on small bore trombones. can
center in quite well with practice, and are not in the least bit
difficult.
Weiner's documentation of the falset register in early position charts
and other documents is one of his principal contributions to this study.
The mention of Heinrich is an interesting addition to this thread. I am
certainly no expert on the man, but as a native Kentuckian who still
lives just a few miles from the state, I have read some with interest of
this man who transplanted himself from Europe, eventually to a log cabin
in Bardstown, Kentucky. (I have tried to interest a local choral
society conductor into a performance of the entire _The Dawning of Music
in Kentucky, or the Pleasures of Harmony in the Solitudes of Nature_ to
no avail, so far.) I think we can I nominate Heinrich as a composer who
often wrote things he had no hope of hearing, correct? He is famous for
leading the first performance of a Beethoven Symphony in the US, in
Lexington KY in 1817, but as the author of a book I read last year
(can't remember - I'll look it up if anybody cares) wrote - what could
that performance have sounded like? What did he use for bassoons? I
would venture to presume that the F bass trombone was very rare in this
country during the years Heinrich was here, writing for it and that he
was writing theoretically - unless, again, he was writing for a tenor
playing falset notes. Several decades later - in the late 1800s and
early 1900s the Sousa-era trombone soloists used these notes quite
frequently - the positions are printed in many of their MS's and
published version of their solos. But as we have seen, Beethoven may
have been writing for an alto trombone he knew of, but which was not
around at the time. (Who knows if the high F was played at the
premiere of the Fifth?)
The same is certainly true, in 1943, for Bartok. Writing the _Concerto
for Orchestra_ for the Boston Symphony, he wrote idiomatically for the
archaic F bass trombone he learned, many years before, in his native
land. (And Christopher told us of hearing a G bass trombone played in
Czech national orchestra in the early 1980's, so who knows if it was
still around in 1943?) So B. wrote a glissando that, being basically
impossible on the Bb/F bass trombone currently in use, did more to spur
the addition of a second valve to the modern bass trombone than any
thing else.
I have not looked at Forsythe in years. For the composers, he has it
backwards. Beethoven did not descend below tenor range, Mozart did very
rarely, but Weber does frequently - and the _Freischütz_ Overture has a
nice low C in it!
Raymond Horton
Andrew Stiller wrote:
On Jan 22, 2009, at 1:46 AM, Ray Horton wrote:
The Eb down to C in question can be played in 4th through 7th
position. On modern instruments, played by players who do not
cultivate this series of notes, there is a noticeable timbre
difference, but on smaller bore instruments, the sound can be
cultivated to match well. [...] Often when a player gives up an
F-attachment for the cleaner-blowing tenor without a valve, they will
work on this "falset" range to cover occasional low notes.
I just *knew* when I wrote that someone was bound to bring up the
subject of privileged frequencies (which is what you and others mean
when you speak of "falsett" tones). and I wondered whether I should
bring them up myself. "Naah," I decided. "Too pedantic."
And here I am, after all, discussing them.
When it comes right down to it, any brass instrument can play any note
from about F# below the piano up to g''' or higher. I had been very
reluctant to believe such a thing until Don Harry of the Buffalo
Philharmonic demonstrated it to me by playing the 2nd Brandenburg
trumpet part (in the correct key and octave) on his contrabass tuba.
He affirmed to me very strongly that the same unlimited range was
available on the trumpet as well--and in my presence got a trumpeter
to agree, after some hemming and hawing, that this was true.
But of course this is not a *practical* range on any instrument--but
it means that the "real" top and bottom limits are fuzzy and somewhat
arbitrary. So yes, the appearance of one or two unusually high or low
notes in a given brass part do not necessarily imply the existence of
an instrument designed and built to play these notes in an everyday
context.
Privileged frequencies are unstable, difficult to hit, and cannot be
reasonably expected to be produced at high volume. They lie by
definition outside the normal range of the instrument, so that if one
is used, it will normally be very clear that the composer has chosen
to descend below the instrument's usual range.
A very high level of expertise is being thrown around in this thread,
both by trombonists and musicologists, so I am going to retreat here
into the music of a composer on whose music ( I am surprised to find)
I am now considered the leading authority: Anthony Philip Heinrich
(1781- 1861)--an American contemporary of Weber.
Heinrich's 40 or so orchestral works are all preserved in single MS
copies--no multiple MSS, no publications, only 2 or 3 sets of parts.
About half the MSS are autograph, and the rest in the hand of
(usually) named copyists. The composer's orchestration is famously
flamboyant and adventurous (ranking with Berlioz in that regard), but
his writing for individual instruments is very conservative. His range
for the flute is *always* d' to a'''. He *never* writes the low
B-natural for bassoon. For timpani he *always* writes for just 2
drums, tuned a fourth or fifth apart.
So what about his trombone writing? He *always* writes for three
trombones, on a single staff, in whatever clef is convenient. The
staff is *always* named " 3 Tomboni (alto, tenore, e basso)". The
section is led from the bottom--that is, if only one trb. plays, it is
the bass; if two play, they are bass and tenor. I observe this same
practice in Beethoven--at least, throughout Fidelio.
Heinrich *always* takes the btrb. down to low C at least once in
*every single piece* that I have examined. He *never* writes lower,
and he *never* takes the tenor below E. Since, in addition, he does
not hesitate to call for the lowest btrb. notes as loud as ff and even
fff, there cannot be, it seems to me, the slightest doubt that he
considered these notes to be a standard part of the instrument's range.
Remember now that this must be read as a *conservative* arrangement,
since H. writes conservatively for all the other instruments. He
writes, in fact, for the models of instruments that were available in
Europe before he left for the States in 1816. He didn't write for any
actual orchestra (American orchestras of the day simply could not
master his scores), but for an ideal one. But that does not mean that
he wrote for non-existent instruments, or that he misunderstood the
range of the bass trombone. Given his extraordinarily idiomatic and
practical writing for *every other instrument* in *every* score, I
regard it as unlikely in the extreme
that for the bass trombone, and *only* for the bass trombone, did he
consistently misunderstand the range throughout an orchestral
composing career spanning more than 30 years.
[...]there are some low notes in the classics, but not as many as you
might think, when you start looking at them. You say 'Beethoven
routinely wrote down to C.' But I know of no Beethoven bass
trombone part that extends below F, including passages in _Fidelio_
and the Ninth which studiously avoid obvious places for lower notes
[...]
As far as Mozart - I believe there are a few low notes in _Don
Giovanni_ (I don't have that part here) but there is only one quarter
note low D in _The Magic Flute_. The choral pieces do not go any
lower than the bass voice.
My bad, I'm afraid. I made the mistake of relying on a secondary
source, albeit a highly regarded one: Forsythe's 1914 _Orchestration_.
Now, Forsythe is far from perfect, but nonetheless he is usually very
reliable about the instruments of his own day and the way they were used.
Of the trombones he says (among much else) that the alto trombone is
"practically obsolete" (note the *practically*); "on the continent the
Bass Trombone has always been built in F"; and "it has always been the
practice from Mozart and Beethoven's time to the present day to write
down to the low C1". He cites a low D in the _Freischütz_ Overture. In
discussing the pros and cons of valves on trombones, he cites as one
of their advantages the ability to fill the gap between the tenor
trombone's low E and the Bb pedal below. Make of all this what you will.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://www.kallistimusic.com/
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