This music director - a decent pianist, who played cornet as a boy in school - understands the different lengths and sizes of tubas, and I use the valve contrabass trombone (“cimbasso”) when it’s pretty obvious that it’s going to sound better than a tuba on a particular piece (not just Italian opera overtures
), and he and I see eye-to-eye nearly always.
There is a tuba part to this which mostly doubles the fourth trombone when it actually plays, and only a few times plays something different from the fourth trombone. In some ways, the tuba part is written a bit like the tuba part for the - otherwise only a quintet – Dahl “Music for Brass”.
I told him that I’d be willing to make a combination part of the two and play all of it on F tuba or play all of it on cimbasso, but that I would really rather not play it on either of the longer instruments (neither B-flat nor C).
He texted me back today, and admitted that he hadn’t listened to it enough nor studied it enough (yet) to decide which of the two to choose. Honesty – versus pretentiousness – as a way to cloak ignorance – is quite refreshing.
(i’d really rather not practice this piece on both instruments. They play quite differently, and valve combinations are different in the lower range. Further – though playing a few of them in “Carmina Burana“ will be fun – I prefer to not be popping out upper D’s over and over on a large/long tuba.)
), and he and I see eye-to-eye nearly always. 