As far as horn transpositions go, the worst are not the Brahms parts in H. The worst are the Wagner parts that change transposition every few bars - part of the early experimentation in which Wagner treated valves as quick-change crooks. In the first 16 bars of the first horn part of the famous Prelude to Act 3 of _Lohengrin_ there are five transposition changes. And, yes, pros prefer to read the original version of that, also, as a rule.
Sure, nowadays there is no reason not to include the transposed F horn parts in any new printed editions, but teachers should continue to teach the players to grow and not use them. Same with Bb trumpets, and bass clef trombone parts. The players need to be able to read the thousands of editions out there which do not have substitute parts, unless they want to put severe limits on their musical contribution for their entire musical lives. Both treble and bass clef euphonium parts are always necessary in band - but that's a different tradition. Good players will want to learn the other clef, so more music will be available to them, but others can continue happily playing in bands only with their beginning clef if they wish. Actually, a euphonium player benefits by learning bass, treble (Bb), treble (C), and tenor clefs, as well as F horn transposition. That way he or she can jump into many situations in which a euphonium part is not included but in which a horn or some other instrument is missing, can read solo music for voice or any other instrument, etc. etc. One can get old just waiting around for that occasional euphonium gig. Raymond Horton Composer, Arranger Bass Trombonist, Louisville Orchestra Minister of Music, Edwardsville (IN) UMC VISIT US at rayhortonmusic.com On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 1:00 PM, John Howell <[email protected]> wrote: > At 11:29 PM -0500 10/29/10, Robert Patterson wrote: > >> >> I >> don't personally know a single professional horn player who works from >> F-transposed parts. >> > > Yes, and that's what the folks on the jazz and commercial side need to > understand. Part of an orchestral horn player's pre-professional education > is working through the orchestral excerpts books and learning to play from > original notation in any reasonable transposition at sight. The worst I > ever ran into was in high school, when I was still a horn player, and was > playing 4th in a university conducting class orchestra. One of the Brahms > symphonies has horn in B, a tritone transposition!!! (And yes, it was > REALLY for horn in B, or H, and not in Bb basso!) > > My problem is that in our small-town-with-a-large-university, when I > recruit horn players for our chamber orchestra they are often band players, > not orchestral players, and they have NOT learned to transpose from original > parts, so I've had to learn where to obtain the transposed parts (and > sometimes to transpose them myself for those players). > > But it's like the need to provide euphonium parts in band arrangements in > both bass clef and transposed treble clef. You can argue all you want about > why it shouldn't be necessary, but in practice it is, and we give the > players what they want to see. > > John > > > -- > John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music > Virginia Tech Department of Music > College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences > Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A. 24061-0240 > Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 > (mailto:[email protected]) > http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html > > "We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition > of jazz musicians. > > _______________________________________________ > Finale mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale > _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
