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Go to Till Eulenspiegel Excerpt 2 | Return to Handbook Table of Contents
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Till Eulenspiegel is a romp to play, and a reward for years of practice. This passage shows the valve and pedal registers well and, despite the fact that it looks like an endless string of dotted quarter notes, there is a method to the madness and the passage must be played intelligently and musically.
First some definitions. "Erstes Zeitmaß" means "The First Tempo;" "immer lebhafter" means "always more lively" and "ausdrucksvoll" means "expressively.
The breath marks indicated give my interpretation of the line we should follow in the passage with implied accents in parentheses. In the orchestral part most often used (an old edition byEdwin F. Kalmus), the publisher, when copying parts by another publisher, left in a stray mark by an unknown bass trombonist - a "+" sign under the low "B." No doubt the player wanted to remind himself to add more air on that note - which isn't a bad idea at all.
Bass trombonists who have performed this piece before will notice one note which may surprise them - the last note of the excerpt is printed as an "F" rather than a "D." An examination of the conductor's score will show that the "F" is correct - the low brass section plays a B flat major chord in second inversion. With the "F," all four notes of the chord are there, but all editions of the parts have had a printed "D" which is in conflict with all printed editions of the score. Kalmus has recently come out with a new edition which corrects this error (one can only imagine the number of recordings of "Till" which have been made with this mistake). But there is a legitimate decision to be made: at an audition, which note do you play? Audition committees who ask "Till" likely will be using old parts with the wrong note and they are accustomed to hearing the wrong note at the end. I suggest that if you go to an audition and the part provided by the orchestra either by mail or on stage contains the wrong note, you either play a "D" at the end or whisper quietly to the onstage monitor and tell him there is a misprint. But under no circumstances should you talk to the committee while behind the screen - you will probably be disqualified at that instant for talking! If there is no screen, go ahead and play the right note ("F") and if questioned by the committee, tell them that the printed note is a misprint - you may get some points for your conscientious homework. This is an example of the muddle we often find ourselves in when we do our homework and fix patent errors in parts, or use more informed performance practice to play an excerpt at a proper tempo. When in doubt, do what the committee asks you.
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