Originally Posted by
adrian_quince
There is no German-style instrument that approaches the sweetness and mellowness of a British Euphonium sound.
I won't really dispute this, but a Deutschophile (??) might suggest that the "mellowness" is in fact "stuffiness". This is again, I would hold, yet another illustration of how each "side" in this often geographical/nationalistic dispute describes it's own respective instruments and the instruments of the other side.
Virtually every tuba player I know who habitually plays an American (piston) tuba or a German/Czech (rotary) tuba has said to me something like "Yeah, I played one of those compensating Brit tubas once, but it was stuffy." Of course, they're not STUFFY (at least the good ones aren't, and ANY variety of tuba MIGHT be stuffy if poorly designed or constructed). They're just different and FEEL stuffy to those unaccustomed to them because of additional back-pressure induced by the compensating circuit. I've played (for lengthy periods of time over my life) German/Czech tubas, American tubas, and British-style tubas, and like and respect them all.
No German instrument that approaches the sweetness and mellowness of the British Euphonium? Well, arguably the modern "French" horn is in fact a German instrument. And then there's the Flugelhorn which I think we need to give high marks for sweetness and mellowness. Not to mention the truly ethereal Wagner tuben. But such disputes are really more comments on ourselves than on our instruments, nicht?
Gary Merrill
Wessex EEb Bass tuba (DW 3XL or 2XL)
Mack Brass Compensating Euph (DE N106, Euph J, J9 euph)
Amati Oval Euph (DE 104, Euph J, J6 euph)
1924 Buescher 3-valve Eb tuba (with std US receiver), Kelly 25
Schiller American Heritage 7B clone bass trombone (DE LB K/K10/112/14 Lexan, Brass Ark MV50R)
1947 Olds "Standard" trombone (Olds #3)