TromboneChat

Title says it all, really. What's some solo rep for tenor in the classical style that you guys think is underplayed/often overlooked?

Johan de meij tbone concerto.

honestly, the Saint-Saens Cavatine falls into this category for me, in that it gets played when people are young and then moved on from quickly. I happen to think it's a true gem of a piece, actually quite hard technically, and should be played at the secondary level and professionally much more.

WilliamLang wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:28 am honestly, the Saint-Saens Cavatine falls into this category for me, in that it gets played when people are young and then moved on from quickly. I happen to think it's a true gem of a piece, actually quite hard technically, and should be played at the secondary level and professionally much more.

This!

The david Concertino
Don't worry, I'm just kidding

Jorgensen Romance is a really great piece and a lot of fun to play

the jorgensen is a good call! so underplayed i just plain forgot about it.

does anyone play Defaye's Deux Dances anymore? Also the William Grant Still Romance should be played more, it's a challenging work to phrase well. While I'm at it - the french etude books (Boutry, Bozza, Bitsch, not the 3Bs we normally think of) should be on recitals.

WilliamLang wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:05 pm the jorgensen is a good call! so underplayed i just plain forgot about it.

does anyone play Defaye's Deux Dances anymore? Also the William Grant Still Romance should be played more, it's a challenging work to phrase well. While I'm at it - the french etude books (Boutry, Bozza, Bitsch, not the 3Bs we normally think of) should be on recitals.

The only one of those Iv'e heard of was Bozza.
Is the Bourgeois Sonata considered underplayed?
Has anybody ever heard of the Upensky Concerto? It's a pretty cool postmodern piece.

How about all the German romantic works that are not David and Sachse (bass) ?

At least in the US I don’t see a lot of Paudert, Gräfe, Reiche. Here I’d say they are underplayed.

oh don't know the Paudert at all, so that's definitely a good point!

Leopold Mozart's Concerto is really quite good as far as trombone music goes. In my opinion, it can be convincingly performed on a tenor just as well as an alto. Other than that, I'm scratching my head trying to remember pieces written for trombone in the classical period. Even calling Ferdinand David's music "classical" is a bit of a stretch in my eyes, especially if you're performing it in America. I see it more like Rossini, with a foot in both the Classical and Romantic camps.

If you want to play music from the classical period, be prepared to arrange, transcribe, transpose, whatever. Bach, Telemann, or Corelli are all great places to start. Haydn's Horn Concerto in D is phenomenal. I'm working on Pergolesi's Sinfonia for Cello & Continuo right now and I'm really enjoying getting into the weeds with this piece, as easy as it seemed at first. There's so much subtlety in this music that requires very specific shading of time, articulation, dynamics, and not hiding behind vibrato while being an outlet to experiment with ornamentation in the practice room.

Anything not originally written for the trombone. Pick a melody. It's almost certain to be better than anything written for our instrument. There's a good chance it's never been performed on our instrument either.

tombone21 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:57 pm Leopold Mozart's Concerto is really quite good as far as trombone music goes. In my opinion, it can be convincingly performed on a tenor just as well as an alto. Other than that, I'm scratching my head trying to remember pieces written for trombone in the classical period. Even calling Ferdinand David's music "classical" is a bit of a stretch in my eyes, especially if you're performing it in America. I see it more like Rossini, with a foot in both the Classical and Romantic camps.

If you want to play music from the classical period, be prepared to arrange, transcribe, transpose, whatever. Bach, Telemann, or Corelli are all great places to start. Haydn's Horn Concerto in D is phenomenal. I'm working on Pergolesi's Sinfonia for Cello & Continuo right now and I'm really enjoying getting into the weeds with this piece, as easy as it seemed at first. There's so much subtlety in this music that requires very specific shading of time, articulation, dynamics, and not hiding behind vibrato while being an outlet to experiment with ornamentation in the practice room.

I meant classical in the general stylistic sense, not the Classical period. Sorry to cause confusion.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 11:16 pm Anything not originally written for the trombone. Pick a melody. It's almost certain to be better than anything written for our instrument. There's a good chance it's never been performed on our instrument either.

Fair. I'm not a huge fan of a lot of our standards.

Here is a good one, The Holst Concertante

JCBone wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:03 am Here is a good one, The Holst Concertante

I have tried listening to this piece, on Lindberg's wind ensemble CD, many times. It might be because the CD has genius interpretations of genius pieces as the rest of the material (how do you outdo your recording of the Bourgeois? Record it again a few years later with a wind ensemble, and prove you only got better at your craft), and the Holst just can't shine, but I'm not sure.

I've never made it through. At least not while actively listening to it. I keep thinking, why would you hire CL to stand in front of your wind ensemble, but not actually play anything for the entire piece? I think the only other recording of his that I actively skip is one of the tracks on the Trombone and Organ CD he did ("utangia na", maybe it was?).

Is there a different interpretation out there I can listen to?

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:53 am

JCBone wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:03 am Here is a good one, The Holst Concertante

I have tried listening to this piece, on Lindberg's wind ensemble CD, many times. It might be because the CD has genius pieces as the rest of the material, and the Holst just can't shine, but I'm not sure.

I've never made it through. At least not while actively listening to it. I think the only other recording of his that I actively skip is one of the tracks on the Trombone and Organ CD he did ("utangia na", maybe it was?)

Is there a different interpretation out there I can listen to?

I gonna have to agree. It is a bit underwhelming.

I really like the works of the modern day composers like Jan Sandstrom, Johan de Meij, Christian Lindberg, Gilles Rochas, Steven Velherst, Daniel Schnyder etc. etc.
You guys should check out Daniel Schnyders Duo Concertante For tenor and bass trombone. A really awesome piece.

You could take it in that direction, with this thread, I guess? All of the good (classical) trombone music is underplayed -- no one can actually play it. 90% of it was written for one dude, and 9% was written for a different dude. Dude 1 could play literally anything, no matter what time signatures, technical challenges, or strange notation you threw at him, as long as it didn't stay in the stratosphere for too long. Dude 2 preferred pieces that weren't too out there and stayed in the stratosphere for the entire thirty minutes (ie, Visions of Light, subtitled "why u no kan play above soopuh Bb for thirty minutes str8 with no rest, n00b （　・ω・）?")

They didn't dip into eachother's rep as much as most of us, I assume, would have liked. At least not yet. Very few of us have dipped into theirs for a paying audience.

Our best pieces are:

Bourgeois concerto
De Meij T-bone concerto
Rouse concerto
Ewazen Visions of Light
Aho symphony 9
Sandström Concertos I and II (NOT the "odyssey" edition)
Mackey Harvest Concerto
Walker concerto
Nyman concerto

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 5:12 am You could take it in that direction, with this thread, I guess? All of the good (classical) trombone music is underplayed -- no one can actually play it. 90% of it was written for one dude, and 9% was written for a different dude. Dude 1 could play literally anything, no matter what time signatures, technical challenges, or strange notation you threw at him, as long as it didn't stay in the stratosphere for too long. Dude 2 preferred pieces that weren't too out there and stayed in the stratosphere for the entire thirty minutes (ie, Visions of Light, subtitled "why u no kan play above soopuh Bb for thirty minutes str8 with no rest, n00b （　・ω・）?")

They didn't dip into eachother's rep as much as most of us, I assume, would have liked. At least not yet. Very few of us have dipped into theirs for a paying audience.

Our best pieces are:

Bourgeois concerto
De Meij T-bone concerto
Rouse concerto
Ewazen Visions of Light
Aho symphony 9
Sandström Concertos I and II (NOT the "odyssey" edition)
Mackey Harvest Concerto
Walker concerto
Nyman concerto

I assume dude 1 is christian lindberg but who is dude 2?

Ole' Joe. Christian asked composers for rests. Joe... he apparently did not...

Visions of Light, so beautiful, and it plays itself... Out of context... Try playing the whole thing, it's another story

Honestly I haven't heard many of his pieces. I'll need to check them out.

As a 1st trombonist (at the time) of a major orchestra used to say

The only thing worse than a trombone concerto, is another trombone concerto

Vegasbound wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 6:34 am As a 1st trombonist (at the time) of a major orchestra used to say

The only thing worse than a trombone concerto, is another trombone concerto

I think Lindberg was unable to work with some major orchestras because the first trombonists thought they could (or had priority to) play those pieces. At least a few first trombonists said such things out of spite and jealousy!

To be sure, the best underplayed classical music for tenor trombone wasn't written for the trombone.

there are a lot of musicians who can play the pieces that lindberg and alessi play. getting orchestras to program them is a completely different story. I personally think the amount of musicianship in trombonists is equal to any other instrument, while the opportunities are too few and biases (even amongst ourselves) are too large for us as a community to realize our potential so far.

Here's another one. The Micheal Haydn Concerto.

Problem is that when you prioritize solo preferences among audience members, the trombone falls right to the bottom, along with the double bass and the tuba. Audiences want to see pianists and violinists. Second tier would be cellists, flautists, and oboists. Third tier is clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, and melodic percussion. Who's left?

how true is this? or is it just what's always happened? to me it's always felt like a cyclical argument (audiences want more of what they've always had.) i've rarely seen a "lower tiered" instrument and heard an audience say "i wish that was a piano instead". more often i've heard "i've never heard that instrument sound so good!"

and sorry, we're drifiting away from the original question a bit, but I think these ideas are intertwined a little. i believe our rep is better than we give ourselves credit for it being, even if the composer's names aren't as famous.

BGuttman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 10:07 am Problem is that when you prioritize solo preferences among audience members, the trombone falls right to the bottom, along with the double bass and the tuba. Audiences want to see pianists and violinists. Second tier would be cellists, flautists, and oboists. Third tier is clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, and melodic percussion. Who's left?

**Controversial opinion below alert**

I think nobody goes to trombone recitals because, in terms of broad appeal, the VAST majority of the rep doesn't even come close to comparing to Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, etc. etc. Your average non musician doesn't really want to hear 20th century trombone rep. Bruce's tier system basically describes how many pieces from the great classical composers exist in each instrument's rep.

Don't get me wrong, I like interesting innovative rep, but I also refuse to think that my job as a musician is to somehow convince/educate normal people into liking music they just don't like. If they like melodies and tonal harmony, who am I to invalidate that? This attitude seems totally disrespectful and dismissive. Imagine going to a restaurant, putting in your order, and having the chef come out and go "Just try this instead. Your pallet isn't developed enough to enjoy it, but trust me, it's great. All the people who know more about food than you really like it."

People have strong deep relationships with music. It makes them dream and remember and feel emotions. They have stopped listening to us because we have stopped listening to them.

For these reasons, I agree with Harrison that we need to take rep from other instruments. Now that the level of playing is so high, let's play those cello sonatas and bassoon pieces. Let's actually play music people like without the gall to tell them what's good for them.

We are so lucky to live in a time and place where we can play music at the level that we do, and that some of us can make a living at it! I feel like we owe it to our communities to give back a bit.

So my small, practical addition to this thread would be the Mozart horn concerti. My last recital was 2 Pryors, Mozart, Jongen, and a sonata that I wrote. The sonata was compositionally the most adventurous piece on the program but, as you can probably imagine, it was still easily digestible.

Rant over.

Kdanielsen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 10:59 am ...

So my small, practical addition to this thread would be the Mozart horn concerti. My last recital was 2 Pryors, Mozart, Jongen, and a sonata that I wrote. The sonata was compositionally the most adventurous piece on the program but, as you can probably imagine, it was still easily digestible.

Rant over.

The Mozart Horn concerti are really playable on trombone. I'd bet if Mozart knew a trombone player of the quality of Leitgeb there would have been more trombone concerti as well as more trombone in his music.

i just can't get behind the cynical thinking about modern music or trombone repertoire in general.

audiences don't just want comfort food and classical music is not just a bunch of 'member berries, and if you believe in the music (truly believe it's good and worthwhile) and can give the audience something to hang on to, they will listen and enjoy.

it's not arrogance or "this is good for you", it's sharing something you love and are excited about that will stick with any audience at any level.

there is a lot of good music already written for trombone, if you don't love it while you play it no one else will.

Bill, just listen to WCRB (local Boston classical radio station -- substitute your own local station; it doesn't matter). Note that the same pieces seem to be performed almost to the exclusion of anything else. They get the same feedback us Orchestras do. Play "3 B's" (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms). Play melodic music. Don't play off-the-wall stuff that jars. There's a reason Walter Piston and Artur Honegger are not well represented -- the stuff just doesn't "sell".

BGuttman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 10:07 am Problem is that when you prioritize solo preferences among audience members, the trombone falls right to the bottom, along with the double bass and the tuba. Audiences want to see pianists and violinists. Second tier would be cellists, flautists, and oboists. Third tier is clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, and melodic percussion. Who's left?

I do wish orchestras would be more adventurous with rep. I once attended a concert with Christian Lindberg and a big name orchestra orchestra. The conductor was Zubin Mehta. I imagine most of the audience came for Bruckner 8 which was on the program and not for the trombone. Anyways he was playing one of Berio's postmodern pieces and the audience seemed really into it. I know that most classical music consumers tend to be very conservative but I feel like the techniqe of "luring" in the audience with more well known pieces could be a good way of exposing people to more abstract pieces.

Kdanielsen wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 10:59 am

**Controversial opinion below alert**

I think nobody goes to trombone recitals because, in terms of broad appeal, the VAST majority of the rep doesn't even come close to comparing to Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, etc. etc.

I think there's some truth to that but I think there's another factor that gets underestimated.

My opinion: piano and trombone just don't work. It's one of those timbral combinations that just grates on people, myself included. I don't seem to mind other instruments in recital with a piano, but not trombone. Give me an organ, maybe even guitar, but please no piano.

And how is classical music music doing then? If this formula worked it wouldn't be as dire as it is. It's not a problem that new pieces (which are rarely played) exist.

Piston and Honneger don't do it for people (though I think piston is massively underrated) but their music was a long time ago and contemporary classical has grown in so many ways.

BGuttman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 12:01 pm Bill, just listen to WCRB (local Boston classical radio station -- substitute your own local station; it doesn't matter). Note that the same pieces seem to be performed almost to the exclusion of anything else. They get the same feedback us Orchestras do. Play "3 B's" (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms). Play melodic music. Don't play off-the-wall stuff that jars. There's a reason Walter Piston and Artur Honegger are not well represented -- the stuff just doesn't "sell".

I should point out that there are three relatively new pieces (one is not really new; just newly available): the Zwilich concertos for bass and tenor trombone, and the Shilkret concerto (hidden for the last half century). These deserve to be played.

Some of my favourites that you don't hear too often:

Stekke - Variations in F sharp minor (op. 24)
Jongen - Aria and Polonaise
Stojowski - Fantasie

Joe has recorded the Stekke and Jongen, and Christian has recorded the Jongen and Stojowski. By the way, Alain Trudel has a nice recording of the Holst with organ.

The 3 solos that I mentioned are all lyrical, romantic sounding pieces with some technical challenges. They are mostly just beautiful pieces that need to be played with a great sound and nice phrasing and interpretation. While I like some occasional great range and technique like any other trombonist, I always appreciate hearing a great melody, well played on any trombone recital that I go to.

Jim Scott

BGuttman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 1:31 pm I should point out that there are three relatively new pieces (one is not really new; just newly available): the Zwilich concertos for bass and tenor trombone, and the Shilkret concerto (hidden for the last half century). These deserve to be played.

The Shilkret is foolishly being kept in a safe, unpublished. Even after it is in the public domain, you won't be able to play it unless you dish out a ton of money to their estate for live performance rights. The sheet music has tons of stipulations and goes straight back to their estate when the performance is over.

WilliamLang wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 11:47 am i just can't get behind the cynical thinking about modern music or trombone repertoire in general.

audiences don't just want comfort food and classical music is not just a bunch of 'member berries, and if you believe in the music (truly believe it's good and worthwhile) and can give the audience something to hang on to, they will listen and enjoy.

it's not arrogance or "this is good for you", it's sharing something you love and are excited about that will stick with any audience at any level.

there is a lot of good music already written for trombone, if you don't love it while you play it no one else will.

This is why it goes unplayed. It takes someone really special to do a lot of the pieces you love justice.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 4:03 pm

WilliamLang wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 11:47 am i just can't get behind the cynical thinking about modern music or trombone repertoire in general.

audiences don't just want comfort food and classical music is not just a bunch of 'member berries, and if you believe in the music (truly believe it's good and worthwhile) and can give the audience something to hang on to, they will listen and enjoy.

it's not arrogance or "this is good for you", it's sharing something you love and are excited about that will stick with any audience at any level.

there is a lot of good music already written for trombone, if you don't love it while you play it no one else will.

This is why it goes unplayed. It takes someone really special to do a lot of the pieces you love justice.

Here's an interesting classical piece from another instrument that yes, takes someone special to play it.


My goals have changed as I age. At this point I have little urge to work on something technical; I do hope to get better at playing simple tunes more cleanly. But examples like Steiner do show what can be done.

tombone21 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 29, 2020 10:57 pm Leopold Mozart's Concerto is really quite good as far as trombone music goes. In my opinion, it can be convincingly performed on a tenor just as well as an alto. Other than that, I'm scratching my head trying to remember pieces written for trombone in the classical period. Even calling Ferdinand David's music "classical" is a bit of a stretch in my eyes, especially if you're performing it in America. I see it more like Rossini, with a foot in both the Classical and Romantic camps.

If you want to play music from the classical period, be prepared to arrange, transcribe, transpose, whatever. Bach, Telemann, or Corelli are all great places to start. Haydn's Horn Concerto in D is phenomenal. I'm working on Pergolesi's Sinfonia for Cello & Continuo right now and I'm really enjoying getting into the weeds with this piece, as easy as it seemed at first. There's so much subtlety in this music that requires very specific shading of time, articulation, dynamics, and not hiding behind vibrato while being an outlet to experiment with ornamentation in the practice room.

That's slightly beside the point of this thread, but...Ferdinand David is squarely Romantic, not a foot in both eras. It's not Wagner or Berlioz or Liszt, who were the most progressive of their generation, but it's very typical German romantic writing. Neither are Bach, Telemann, Corelli or Pergolesi, by the way, those are very much "high baroque" composers.

BGuttman wrote: ↑Wed Dec 30, 2020 11:30 am The Mozart Horn concerti are really playable on trombone. I'd bet if Mozart knew a trombone player of the quality of Leitgeb there would have been more trombone concerti as well as more trombone in his music.

He did know a trombone player of the quality of Leitgeb in Salzburg, his name was Thomas Gschladt, and he did write solo music for him (there is a trombone solo in his first (sacred) opera certainly written for him), as did his father and Michael Haydn. There were also top notch trombone players in Vienna who he certainly knew of once he moved there and wrote for. The reason for the trombone's very selective use wasn't that there weren't good players around.

* * * * *

One of the most underplayed pieces of solo rep from the "common era" is cetainly the Concertino for horn and trombone from Michael Haydn's Serenade in D Major (P87). Contrary to the other Haydn and L. Mozart serenade/divertimento movements with solo trombone, this one works perfectly well as a stand-alone concertino, as it is two consecutive movements that form a unit within the original piece (and is labeled "Concertino" in the score). It is a really good piece, and it works well on 2 trombones too! The solo trombone (and horn) make another appearance later in the serenade, when there is a recitative where all the solo instruments take turns playing a phrase or two. It's a quite nice work overall, but the Concertino movements are really solid.


Otherwise, I'll say pretty much the entirety of the quite vast repertoire with soloistic trombone from the baroque era (from early 17th-century Italy all the way to late 18th-century Vienna) is underplayed when it comes to modern trombone playing. We play Telemann and Marcello and Bach transcriptions but ignore our own rich repertoire. Granted, most of it is not for solo trombone only, it's either chamber music involving other instruments, or it involves a singer.

I will say that I think it's possible to keep things modern and interesting without being atonal and jarring. Bourgeois.

Mackey Harvest. Modern, exciting, not weird.

Rush Rebellion? Maybe?

Hartley, Sonata Concertante
Hlobil, Sonata
Imbrie, 3 Sketches
Leibowitz, 4 Bagatelles

I'd love to hear any of the top tenor pros play any of these live.