Salome

[Finetales]

So, I just finished reading through the score to Salome (Strauss opera) for the first time. I was really just focused on the trombone writing, and let me tell you: I was not prepared for what I would find. The trombone parts, or more specifically Strauss' reasons for writing them the way he did, got more confusing every page.

Sidenote: I put this in History of the Trombone rather than Performance, as I'm not asking what modern instruments we should play the parts on. I personally think the answer to that is cut and dry: 2 tenors, 2 basses. This post is about historical context.

Here's the best way I can summarize the 4 trombone parts to Salome:

- 1st and 2nd trombone are a like-voiced pair of instruments - undoubtedly tenor trombones with F attachments (as both parts contain low Ebs). They are frequently written together as a pair.
- 3rd and 4th trombone are also a like-voiced pair of instruments. They both go down to pedal Bb and up to a similar limit (3rd to F#4, 4th to D4). They are frequently written together as a pair. We should probably play these parts on bass trombone.
- Sometimes 2nd and 3rd trombone are written together as a pair, usually in octaves, in a way that suggests they are not supposed to be the same kind of instrument. If they were, the passage would just be in 1st+2nd or 3rd+4th.
- Either Strauss definitely intended for the 3rd and 4th parts to not be played on the same type of trombone as the 1st and 2nd parts, or Strauss' 3rd trombonist was his favorite, because the 3rd trombone part gets almost all of the solos. Granted most of them are in lower register (bottom of the staff or thereabouts), but some of them really seem like they should be in the 1st part and just...aren't. For example:





Both of these passages have long rests on either side for all trombones, so there's no discernible reason why it would be in the 3rd part and not the first, except that Strauss really wanted the sound that 3rd trombone had (or just really hated his principal trombonist).

It gets even weirder. For most of the piece, the 3rd and 4th trombone are obviously the lowest 2 voices and are written to highlight a lower tessitura than the 1st and 2nd. Both parts spend lots of time below the staff, including lots of low Cs, Bs, and Bbs. Yet sometimes Strauss decides to deliberately mess up the voicings to give a pedal Bb to the 2nd trombone, and put the 3rd trombone an octave above. For example:







In that last example, the 2nd trombone has a pedal Ab, which is the lowest note in any trombone part in the score.

There's also this gem, which makes a bit of sense scoring-wise but is still hilarious to look at:



But returning to the point, why would Strauss deliberately flip the voicing to put the pedal Bb in the 2nd part when it has been in the 3rd (or 4th) part plenty of times elsewhere? It seems like the clearest evidence that Strauss did not want the two pairs of trombones to be playing the same kind of instruments, or else there would be no need to do that. It seems that he wanted the 2nd trombone on the pedal in those passages for some tonal reason.

However, other spots in the score seem to indicate that they're actually all just tenor-bass trombones whose voicing is interchangeable. Sometimes the 3rd or even 4th trombone is the highest voice. For example:





(1+2 on the top staff, 3+4 on the bottom)

I've also concluded that Strauss hated his principal trombonist, judging by how many times he could have put a one-trombone passage in the 1st part and put it in the 2nd instead. 1st trombone plays by FAR the least out of all the parts. It's mostly the 3rd and sometimes 2nd and 4th show.

It's odd, because what seems to be the basic concept for Strauss' trombone writing in this piece is very cool in my opinion.

1st trombone = Solo high trombone. Leader of the section and of the high trombone pair. Does principal things.
2nd trombone = Plays with the 1st trombone or 3rd trombone. 2nd+3rd play any tenor+bass passages together.
3rd trombone = Solo low trombone. Leader of the low trombone pair, but also functions as the bass in a typical TTB section as the 4th trombone rests.
4th trombone = Lowest trombone. Plays with the 3rd trombone or tuba. 4th takes on the traditional bass trombone role, joined at the hip with the tuba and being the lowest voice of the trombones.

However, Strauss establishes this and then throws every exception in the book at it immediately, for seemingly no reason.

So, with all that laid out to see, my questions for the historians are pretty simple.

1. Do we know what kind of trombones Strauss had access to and was writing for during this time? If so, do we know or have an idea what he was writing for specifically in Salome?
2. Could all this be explained much more easily by Strauss writing for 4 tenor-bass trombones like Mahler did, but the 4 individual players he had sounded very different from each other? Or is it simply a case of Strauss deciding to spice up the part writing just because he felt like it?

[Chatname]

Great post!
Having played Salome many times and soon again, your observations are very interesting to me! Fantastic piece of music and great fun to play!
I cannot answer your questions, however it being premiered by the Staatskapelle Dresden, which still is incredibly proud of it’s roots and traditions, one might reach out to the posaunists there to get some answers.

[Geordie]

Not at all familiar with the work or the genre, but enjoyed your analysis and found it interesting. Thank you.

[BGuttman]

One possible reason for that pedal in the 2nd trombone instead of the 3rd is that Strauss may have expected F Bass trombones for 3rd and 4th. Pedal Bb on an F Bass is a difficult (if not impossible) note.

Note that at the time it was common to use the "Tenor-Bass" instrument in Bb with an F valve. We don't know what was going through Strauss' mind as he wrote; we can only conjecture.

[Chatname]

I usually play the first part with the f-attachment. There are only a few or even one tone that has to be played with the valve, if I remember correctly, towards the end. But also some fast passages like in Salomes dance that are easier with the valve. Surely it was written for a tenor-bass. It’s such a great score. I get goosebumps only thinking about it…

[Finetales]

One possible reason for that pedal in the 2nd trombone instead of the 3rd is that Strauss may have expected F Bass trombones for 3rd and 4th. Pedal Bb on an F Bass is a difficult (if not impossible) note.

But, the 3rd (and 4th) parts both have plenty of pedal Bbs elsewhere, including in an agile passage in unison. So Strauss had no problem giving them that note in any context.

[robcat2075]

Has copyist/publisher error or misadventure been eliminated as a cause of the unexplained exchanges?

That stuff happens.

There's a critical edition of Strauss's work so someone must have thought there were enough errors to merit such a thing.

[Finetales]

Well, if all of those instances were mistakes, nobody bothered to correct them for the reduced orchestra version, as they are still there in that version.

[robcat2075]

Well, if all of those instances were mistakes, nobody bothered to correct them for the reduced orchestra version, as they are still there in that version.

Somebody not bothering to fix mistakes yesterday is what keeps scholarly critical edition scholars busy today.

If it wasn't Strauss making the reduced version ...how would they know it was a mistake?

And if it was Strauss... I can think of times I've had to dig up projects from a few years earlier and thought, "Why did I do that?...oh well...no one died the first time, it must be OK... deadlines..."


It might all be some super-genius 3-dimensional chess stuff or... maybe he got something up side down one night and when he caught it the next night it was easier to keep going with it than back up and change it all.