Toughest music piece

[WaltTrombone]

Toughest music piece

Oh, man, I got jinxed by this thread! Pineapple Poll is on the next band concert!

[suetuba]

Toughest music piece

That cartoon resembles my studio right now! Thanks for the laugh, Rick.
Even last night I let myself weasel out of playing the two harder excerpts ("too tired", " a slight headache", "maybe a whisky would be nice")!
A disgrace! I would murder any student of mine who did this! Self discipline is soooo hard!.
Sue (going slightly nutty)

[blueeuph]

Toughest music piece

Sousa's The Pride of The Wolverines atleast at my Community Band rehearsal lastnight, mainly from measure 5 to the 1st ending esp.. I think it may just a case of the conductor going a tad fast and I only saw the piece once.

I haven't able to find any full performance recordings of it on the net so far. Any little hints other then slow it down then build it up? I'm fine after the one section I mentioned minus wanting to do something with the tenor saxes at the trio (another story), lol.

[davewerden]

Toughest music piece

Originally posted by: blueeuph

Sousa's The Pride of The Wolverines
...I haven't able to find any full performance recordings of it

There are a couple versions on the Euphonium Excerpt Site. The site is focused on the pieces in Barbara Payne's Euphonium Excerpt Book, but there is a section for other good euphonium pieces (this section is small but growing).

Marches

[Kjetil]

Toughest music piece

Sue

What Wozzeck are you talking about? Is it the Alban Berg opera? I take it that you're not talking about band music.

By the way - Alban Berg is one of my favourite composers. I'm sorry to hear that you don't like the piece. I think it's great. 12 tone music and sprechgesang, a dramatic story with love and murder. What more can you get?
And do listen to his violin concerto. I have three different recordings of it and can't finish listening to it. It has haunted me for 15 years now and still is my favourite 12 tone neo romantic piece.

Oh, I have left the thread! Sorry.
Let me see... the most difficult piece is not easy to name. There has been some contemporary music for symphonic band along the years. Some of that is nearly unplayable. Also I find it difficult to start on high notes in pp. I played Vissi d'Arte from Puccinis Tosca with symphonic band and the opening of it is starting on a high a natural. Not a difficult tone to reach under normal circumstances, but to start together with woodwinds and soprano in pp is a bit challenging.

The technical difficulty is also up to the conductor. I have played Year of the Dragon in a tempo that was a bit over the edge. It isn't fun to play a concert where you go beyond the limit of everyone's technical capability.

[suetuba]

Toughest music piece

Oh, sorry, no, I didn't mean band music!. I don't play in bands, as they're not really a big thing here, except perhaps at school level.
I did mean the darn orchestra music. I'm not anti modern music or anything - bit hard to be when most compositions for tuba are contemporary- but I just find Wozzeck really hard to get to grips with. I will admit ignorance of the Violin concerto, and will add it to my intended listening list; thanks for the recommendation.

I haven't played in a band for a long time, but I do recall being scared witless by an Alfred Reed piece, something to do with the Kama Sutra? Too many notes and too fast! And the composer was out the front conducting! He wasn't sightreading, but I was. Scary! That was a fair few years ago, but I haven't forgotten the trauma yet.
Sue

[Kjetil]

Toughest music piece

If you want I can email you the score. I just downloaded it from imslp before it closed down. I'm sure you have it in your excerpts book, but a score can sometimes be handy when listening. I also recommend listening to Bach Cantata no 60 and the end choral "Es ist genug" which Alban Berg uses in the second movement. It is just ingenious how he uses the four modus operandi from the strict rules of the second Viennese School with the main theme from the choral.

[suetuba]

Toughest music piece

Only this morning I heard an announcement on the radio of a live broadcast of the Berg Violin Concerto later this week: it was described as "one of the most emotional pieces of the twentieth century". Thanks for alerting me to this piece, Kjetil. I would love a copy of the score but I think my simple dial-up internet connection would not cope with the size of a full score! Thank you for the kind offer though. I am fairly sure that it is in the Torchinsky 20C excerpt book.
I will admit I haven't given Berg a fair go; the prospect of playing his music is so terrifying! But there again, there's lots of music that once terrified me and now is almost ho-hum. Maybe I am starting out on a journey of discovery with Berg!
Sue

[Kjetil]

Toughest music piece

The score is in .pdf format and only 4.6MB.
Long since I had a dial-up line. Nowadays it's more common with broadband. Mine is 2Mbps download and 350kbps upload.
You should be able to view my email if you click on my avatar.

[suetuba]

Toughest music piece

Kjetil, I tried to use your email addy in the avatar, but it bounced. Here's the info on tonight's live video stream of the Berg Concerto.

http://www.abc.net.au/classic/
Visit this page at 8.00 pm AEDT on Friday, 7 December 2007 for a live video stream of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra direct from the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall. [requires Windows Media Player]

Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin
Gianluigi Gelmetti, conductor
Wagner Siegfried Idyll
Berg Violin Concerto (To the Memory of an Angel)
Schubert Symphony No 9 in C, D944 (Great C Major

Apologies to other readers of this thread, I know it should be a private message, but I tried and it didn't work.
Sue

[Kjetil]

Toughest music piece

You can use this adress:

kjetil@kystaktiv.no

That one whould work

[davewerden]

Toughest music piece

suetuba (and all):

When you click on the avatar, you see a protected email address to make it hard for automated programs to harvest a bunch of emails from the forum.

When you see an email address there, take out the word "REMOVE" from within the address.

If your real email is:
test@test.com

you will see it displayed something like:
test@tREMOVEest.com

[suetuba]

Toughest music piece

thanks for explaining that Dave. I did think it was an odd email address! I am such a computer dill that it didn't occur to me.
Sue

[bearphonium]

Toughest music piece

I know this is straying from the topic a bit...

Sue, I had the opportunity (while in college and playing the French Horn) to have Alfred Reed come and conduct the "west coast premier" of the "Armenian Dances Part II". I was NOT sight reading it (thankfully!). We did a couple of other pieces that had been commisioned and composed for our band, also conducted by the composers--very intense experience!

Ally

[blueeuph]

Toughest music piece

Last week in the Brandon Community band rehearsal, we got Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by John Williams arr. Robert W. Smith. There's a miserable bassoon cue which I will have to play in measures 89 to 91 seeing that we don't have any bassoon players.

In Bb Major and in 6/8 time the notes are 16th notes and as follows: A G# A Bb A Ab G natural (that's beat one) , A Bb A natural Ab G Ab (end of measure 89)

Measure 90: F# G F# Eb D Eb (that's beat one) , F# Ab G D Eb E natural (end of measure 91) and just a plain A, dotted half note in measure 92. For the groupings of the 16th notes, in each beat, the slur markings are in a group of 4 + 2 (if this makes sense). The tempo is dotted quarter note = 80.

I've seen my share of weird runs for bassoon parts or cues but this one is a finger twister for me! and made me sound human in the band.