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Gioachino Rossini's Overture to his opera La Gazza Ladra (translated into English, loosely, as "The Thieving Magpie") is a difficult but rewarding piece for the bass trombonist.
Rossini wrote the opera for a small opera house which had a small pit for the orchestra, hence, he scored the opera for a small orchestra which includes a single trombone. Because the range of the work is not particularly high, it is usually played by the bass trombonist, although in the list of instruments in his original score, Rossini writes "tromboni" (sic: despite this, as mentioned above, there is only one trombone part). La Gazza Ladra suffers from having many poor and mangled editions of the work available. There are even editions (by German publishers) which increase the size of the orchestra to three trombones. The confusion can be sorted out by going back to Rossini's original manuscript to the overture, which may be found in facsimile. Published in 1934 by G. Ricordi (and at the time offered for a price of 40 Lire - to tell you something about inflation, in 2002, 40 Lire is worth about 18 US cents!), the facsimile is our key to unravelling the myriad editions and solving the many questions which have come about as a result.
There are three excerpts from the overture which are frequently asked for on auditions. This first one is relatively straight forward. Some editions have staccato marks over some of the quarter and eighth notes, although Rossini's manuscript does not have them. The style, however, is light and dry, and crisp, clear eighth notes are called for. Some editions also have a triplet after each of the first four half notes in this excerpt (the triplet, when written, contains three notes which are the same pitch as the half note). Rossini's manuscript, however, does not have the triplet for the trombone, reserving it for the celli and bassi only.
The excerpt requires a sense of emphasis on the strong beats - the beginning of the arpeggio and the high note in each grouping. Be careful not to fall behind in the quarter rest after each half note; at an audition, the committee is particularly listening for the quality of your articulation (which should be clear, clean and crisp) and an even pulse of the rhythm/meter. Be sure to play this with a sense of it being in "1" rather than hammering it out in "3" - anything you can do to make the excerpt have authority but also be light will add positively to the character.
Finding a good place to breathe in the second half of the excerpt is difficult; I recommend "sniff" breathing, which is the technique of sniffing in a quick breath through the nose without removing the mouthpiece from the embouchure. Keep the excerpt moving and don't let it drag!
To download the music of this excerpt as a PDF file which may be read and printed in a high quality output with Adobe Acrobat Reader (free software), click the icon below:
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