Trombone excerpts MP3s

There is a new website called tromboneexcerpts.org which contains a great number of recordings of famous trombone excerpts. For example for Ravel's Bolero, underneath the printed excerpt you can listen to the trombone excerpt played from these CDs:

Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan - 1966 - Deutsche Grammophon
Boston Symphony Orchestra, Charles Munch - 1959 - RCA Victor Living Stereo
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Daniel Barenboim - 2000 - Teldec
Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Neeme Järvi - 1992 - Chandos
Hallé Symphony Orchestra, Sir John Barbirolli - 1986 - Bescol
Lithuania Symphony Orchestra, Anton Nanut - 1997 - Point Classics

Not bad at all! But isn't this illegal? Well... Seth Vatt, who is compiling this website claims "Fair Use" under US copyright law because it is for education and only excerpts. But I'm not convinced it's healthy for record sales. And intense comparison between orchestras may further strait-jacket interpretations into the "single global style".

There is a principal in engineering, that if you design something, those that know/examine existing designs are less likely to come up with something innovative. But then you could say that trombonists are not artistes - purely craftsmen, and the conductor's job is to sculpts the music from the quality raw material provided by the orchestra. But probably that's just what conductors think...

Philadelphia Orchestra eats conductors

The Philadelphia Orchestra has been pronounced by its local Inquirer as a:

conductor-eating orchestra

This relates to the premature departure of maestro Christoph Eschenbach, which was announced last week.

Lunch

Unlike the world of brass bands where typically the band manager phones its MD to simply say "Don't bother coming next week", Eschenbach has a contract which runs for another two years. So it remains unclear how relations will continue in that time. Mind you, despite it being well known that Slatkin was "unpopular" (The Guardian) with the BBC Symphony, they would still often sound marvellous, despite the circumstances. The pride of the musicians often shines through when their chips are down.

A couple of years ago at the Nationals I saw a top brass band play beautifully, but they seemed to be following the Principal Cornet and not the conductor. In Nimrod they were almost two full beats behind the stick at times in a mockery of the man at the front who was not seen with them again.

The Philadelphia Inquirer says that a key reason why Eschenbach rubbed up his players the wrong way was his:

flexible tempos and spontaneous style of music-making

Frankly this must be a euphemism for haphazard direction - it is ridiculous to think that the musicians refused to follow a conductor's baton for the simple reason that it was a slightly different tempo the day before.

What intrigued me most in the article from the article was the description of one person they may wish to invite as replacement. The fiery Italian walked out of a production at the Royal Opera House in 2004 and was sacked from La Scala in 2005.

Riccardo Muti still has holes in his schedule that he would be willing to give to Philadelphia - assuming it doesn't violate his reportedly complex sense of protocol

Is this a rather more cryptic euphemism?

Year of the Trombone

So, the New York Times (14 Oct 2006) has declared 2006 "the year of the trombone". This is due to four premieres of trombone concertos in America - Lindberg, M. Wagner, Gryc and McAllister. Let's hope with all the excitement of the premieres, they become successful enough to be played again.

The NYT harks back to 1980-1984 when as young players, Joe Alessi sat next to Charlie Vernon in the Philadelphia Orchestra, a much talked about combination. It's great to hear this story of these talented musicians letting their hair down with a humourous sing-a-long.

Mr. Alessi and Mr. Vernon used to play together in the Philadelphia Orchestra, and they belonged to a brass-section barbershop quartet. Mr. Vernon, the bass trombonist, sang high tenor.

New York Times

Shostakovich fun

I feel really bowled over by the Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. I saw it last night at the Royal Opera House and the whole show is vivid and wild. The music is crazy - think non-sanitised film music with a huge dose of wit and sarcasm commentating on a shocking story of sex and violence. The scoring is wind and brass-heavy: I loved the contra and piccolo duets which mix the macabre with the jaunty. And there are many great trombone moments, including an eerie solo finishing the second act. Eric Crees, Simon Wills and Keith McNicol made a terrific sound, not afraid to give it ffff when required.

In the second half there is a 15-piece on-stage brass band. It's quite comedy seeing this ensemble of top serious London professionals dressed in wild 1960's garb, with bright floral shirts, coloured trousers and even one in a pink mini-dress. This probably explains the facial expressions...

the brilliantly deadpan on-stage brass band
The Guardian