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OK...I fully expect a couple of "my orchestra played it just last year" responses, but the reality is that most orchestras' music directors rarely program it.

It's not as if it requires hiring a bunch of extra folks...ie. "It ain't no Mahler 2 type o' thang"...

piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, and 2 bassoons. (basically, 3-3-3-2, fairly standard)
4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and tuba (standard)
timpani, chimes, cymbals, triangle, and glockenspiel (very standard)
harp, celesta, piano, and organ (ad lib.) standard, other than an extra keyboard player...unless there's a decision to add the organ


...and it's really a pretty interesting work, as well as an interesting concept...very "Pictures at an Exhibition"-like thematically.

It is "noisy" according to some of the string players I have known over my career here and in other places. Fountains is not a very transparent orchestration. The final product (even on the recordings of some pretty fine orchestras) is rather muddy.

Pictures can be a strange experience, based upon the intent of the tuba player.

Chapped, and split lipped, the call is made to a euphonium player.

Lots of community orchestras program whatever. I would also say community orchestras put a lot of stuff on the calendar, only to silently have the program subject to change.


I actually prefer calling them the viola section. Because calling them the 3rd violin section, just sounds so dumb.

Hey Schiltzz, Why don't you just lay off of viola players? My wife is a viola player and she makes more in a year between shows and strolling jobs than you will probably make in your whole excuse for a career.With all due respect of course. Ed Firth

@the elephant

Yeah...Between Fountains, Pines, and Roman Festival, I've only played Roman Festival - and it was as you described...

...yet there are plenty of works that aren't particularly transparent and possibly offering less appeal which are programmed more often, yes?

A few years ago, one orchestra was allowed to choose the season finale big piece, and the strings obviously had the overwhelming vote. They stuck together and corporately chose Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra, which is understandable - as it's sort of chamber-music-ish and less effects-ish.

I have to admit to being more attracted to pieces of music whereby the orchestra is used to create sound effects and to blur things into other things. Those pieces seem more magical, at least to me... I guess I'm admitting to enjoying listening to Ravel and Sciabin, even though they didn't write many notes for us. Strauss would fall into this category as well, come to think of it.

I'll throw an oddball choice out there: Church Windows

Good tune, but it's no Lincolnshire Posy.*


* This is meant purely as a joke. Lincolnshire Posy has got to be the most "look at me! I know music" tune any band director can reference. When I was student teaching in rural NY, I heard this group of area MIDDLE SCHOOL band directors talking about beginning band music and one of them actually said about a piece "it's good, but it's no Lincolnshire Posy." As a senior in college, I was already rolling my eyes at that comment.

Back when the Memphis Symphony was per service which half of the orchestra still is, I remember them programming some really wild things, including such thing as Belshazzar's Feast. Interestingly, I don't remember them programming much Mahler. I guess the music director knew his limits.

tubatodd wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:31 am Good tune, but it's no Lincolnshire Posy.*


* This is meant purely as a joke. Lincolnshire Posy has got to be the most "look at me! I know music" tune any band director can reference. When I was student teaching in rural NY, I heard this group of area MIDDLE SCHOOL band directors talking about beginning band music and one of them actually said about a piece "it's good, but it's no Lincolnshire Posy." As a senior in college, I was already rolling my eyes at that comment.

Lincolnshire Posy is a monumental and ground-breaking work for wind band; do you think it’s overdone? I could see that comment being made sort of tongue-in-cheek.

I remember one jury I had in college where I was playing the Gregson concerto, and one panelist said “you played that well, but it’s no Vaughan Williams.” Not sure I’d really classify either of those tuba concertos as “good music” outside the tuba hemisphere, but that’s the hand we’re dealt.

Yeah, that's sort of like saying that "blah blah news outlet is full of hooey, which is why I watch blah blah blah news outlet" (which, in reality, is also full of hooey).

ie. Yes. Neither one of those tuba pieces are any sort of Sibelius, Mendelssohn, nor even Poulenc. Both of those pieces are "cute" at best...and I find it funny that some "panelist" would hold the Vaughan Williams tuba concerto in such high regard.

bloke " 'Tuba solos' are to music as 'band pieces written to particular difficulty levels' are to music...and perhaps I triggered another 'serious' tuba player, again today."

My last year of collitch got to play Pini with our university orchestra and a few years later with a community orchestra on the peninsula. I remember wondering if I'd ever get the chance to play Fountains and so I got a couple recordings to check it out; honestly didn't care whether I'd ever play it or not after afterwards. Pines of Rome was a blow fest though the folks who had the most fun were the off-stage players in those little recital halls we'd play in.
I miss the chair

arpthark wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 9:46 am

tubatodd wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:31 am Good tune, but it's no Lincolnshire Posy.*


* This is meant purely as a joke. Lincolnshire Posy has got to be the most "look at me! I know music" tune any band director can reference. When I was student teaching in rural NY, I heard this group of area MIDDLE SCHOOL band directors talking about beginning band music and one of them actually said about a piece "it's good, but it's no Lincolnshire Posy." As a senior in college, I was already rolling my eyes at that comment.

Lincolnshire Posy is a monumental and ground-breaking work for wind band; do you think it’s overdone? I could see that comment being made sort of tongue-in-cheek.

I remember one jury I had in college where I was playing the Gregson concerto, and one panelist said “you played that well, but it’s no Vaughan Williams.” Not sure I’d really classify either of those tuba concertos as “good music” outside the tuba hemisphere, but that’s the hand we’re dealt.

Agreed that it is a monumental piece. It was the final piece in our senior conducting class in college. I've performed it many times and have enjoyed it. The point is, that in certain circles I've seen Lincolnshire Posy used as a froofy measuring stick by which all band music is measured. I heard it batted around way for people to say they are edge-a-ma-cated. As result of that when I hear Lincolnshire Posy mentioned, it has be come a trigger.

concert band snobs

(...and orchestral musicians are cured of that pretty quickly, once they're hired on by an orchestra, as it's quite apparent very soon thereafter that they are viewed as the help.)

Re being considered to be "the help"…

Many years ago, at the local Symphony League's Symphony Ball. where we—the Symphony—performed as the honored guests and (truthfully) the JSL's very raison d'être, the Symphony was required to enter the country club via the loading dock at the kitchen, go though the kitchen, and store our cases and warm up in a literal janitor's closet, so our presence would neither disturb nor challenge the social status of the "cleaner, better people" who were actual members of the club.

What disgraceful scumbaggery…

I think I have played Fountains three or four times over the last 30 years. I don't think it's really that good of a work. I like Pines much more; but have only played it two or three times.

the elephant wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 12:40 pm Re being considered to be "the help"…

Many years ago, at the local Symphony League's Symphony Ball. where we—the Symphony—performed as the honored guests and (truthfully) the JSL's very raison d'être, the Symphony was required to enter the country club via the loading dock at the kitchen, go though the kitchen, and store our cases and warm up in a literal janitor's closet, so our presence would neither disturb nor challenge the social status of the "cleaner, better people" who were actual members of the club.

What disgraceful scumbaggery…

Don't make the mistake of thinking that "big whatever" orchestra personnel are thought of with any higher regard.

The Brute Squad wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 8:29 am I'll throw an oddball choice out there: Church Windows

I was going to bring this up and you beat me. I wanted to work this excerpt during my DMA (especially after hearing the Cincinnati Symphony recording over and over and having played a gig with Pete Norton)—my professor wanted to teach it too and contacted his orchestra’s librarian.

Apparently the rental just for church windows is insanely expensive, no copies were available.

As for Fountains—I think it is programmed when the rest of the “Roman Trilogy” is performed. Pines is the one I see programmed as a stand alone most often.

edfirth wrote: ↑Tue Mar 25, 2025 6:56 am My wife is a viola player and she makes more in a year between shows and strolling jobs than you will probably make in your whole excuse for a career.With all due respect of course. Ed Firth

No, she makes decent money. The six I went to school with, 2 on Bainbridge Island, 2 on Mercer Island, and the 2 in Cali, I’m sure, have more talent, money, and real estate holdings. They switched from violin for an easier life. They retired at 55.

My bills are paid, I live in Kitsapalacchia. There are no Constitutional protections for stupid people. We can toast marshmallows in 6 weeks, when string instrument rentals start returning.

Schlitzz wrote: ↑Mon Mar 24, 2025 10:38 pm Pictures can be a strange experience, based upon the intent of the tuba player...

Lots of community orchestras program whatever. I would also say community orchestras put a lot of stuff on the calendar, only to silently have the program subject to change.

This literally happened to me. I was going to go through my rite of passage and play Bydlo on a concert... and then Russia invaded Ukraine and the program was changed to... Shostakovich 5. Irony is involved somewhere in this situation, and while most would argue that the music itself was tantamount to an expression of irony from the composer, I think the irony was the selection of the music itself. Go figure.

Billy M. wrote: ↑Wed Mar 26, 2025 10:41 am

Schlitzz wrote: ↑Mon Mar 24, 2025 10:38 pm Pictures can be a strange experience, based upon the intent of the tuba player...

Lots of community orchestras program whatever. I would also say community orchestras put a lot of stuff on the calendar, only to silently have the program subject to change.

This literally happened to me. I was going to go through my rite of passage and play Bydlo on a concert... and then Russia invaded Ukraine and the program was changed to... Shostakovich 5. Irony is involved somewhere in this situation, and while most would argue that the music itself was tantamount to an expression of irony from the composer, I think the irony was the selection of the music itself. Go figure.

Shostakovich is said to have been a harsh critic of Soviet totalitarianism, but expressed it in musical sarcasm rather than verbally. I tend to believe that he suspected that the militaristic character of that Symphony would be understood by thinking people of the serf class - and perhaps the intellectuals as well - in the Soviet Union, but might go over the heads of the tyrannical ruling class.