Mr. Tuba

20. Coda

442 Allowing myself to be put in positions for which I had not been prepared forced me to work an insane schedule when it came to balancing family time, personal time, and professional maintenance as a performer. By that, I simply mean if I had kept my initial priorities, I was first and foremost a player. By 1960–1965, I was at the crest of my playing. The years 1957–1967 had to be the high point of my career as a performer simply because that’s all I was doing. I was performing and teaching in my Carnegie Hall studio, accepting only the few students I chose to teach. At times,convenienttomyschedule,Ididn’twork—Iplayed,wordsofdouble meaning for any musician. I took on administrative positions for which I was not trained and so I had to “burn the candle at both ends” to learn the responsibilities which came as a trust from others I admired. Each leap—working for Gunther Schuller at the New England Conservatory, taking on the responsibilities of executive editor at The Instrumentalist—was like going into a war zone without a weapon. It’s one hell of a job to gain the respect that’s necessary to administer important tasks for which you’ve had no training. It is like an actorwhohasneverplayed anythingbutcowboyrolessuddenly finding himselfplayingHamletwithouteverhavingheardof WilliamShakespeare. Coda CHAPTER TWENTY 443 Coda Some of us have always felt how different orchestras would be if there had been a section of tubas as there was of the trumpets, horns, and trombones . But music written for the ophicleide (the instrument preceding the tuba) was the first orchestral music inherited by the tuba—as a section of one. Today we have two basic sections of brass instruments: cylindrical (trumpets and trombones) and conical (horns and tuba). The sound of conical instruments is warmer and mellower than that of the cylindrical instruments. Great brass instrument performance did not start last week, last year, or even fifty years ago. Great brass playing has been with us for a very long time. It is not possible to hear recorded performances of Jean-Baptiste Arban , but recognizing the pedagogical legacy of his Complete Method compels us to consider that he was a tremendous performer. The Arban book, referred to as “The Brass Players’ Bible,” is still being sold. Edwin Franko Goldman edited the definitive edition of the Arban Complete Method for Cornet or Trumpet in 1912. Other great brass artists established ever-rising standards for their respective instruments. Some of these artists became international celebrities , such as Jules Levy and Herbert L. Clarke (cornet and trumpet). Clarke is reputed to have performed more than fifteen thousand solo performances with the Sousa Band. Other international celebrities include Bruno Jaenicke (horn), Arthur Pryor (trombone), Simone Mantia (euphonium ),andAugustHelleberg(tuba).Althoughtheirrepertoirewaslimited mostly to manuscripts they had time to arrange, transcribe, or compose, their tone, style, and technique were not so limited. The 1929 recording of Ein Heldenleben conducted by Willem Mengelberg was identified as something very special. We look with pride at the first celebrated orchestral tubist, August Helleberg (1861–1936). No individual tubists received accolades of notice before him. His son John (whom I knew well), used to say, “Yeah, my father , August Helleberg, was the daddy of ’em all!” As principal tuba of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra when it was founded, Helleberg was geographically close to Elkhart, Indiana, home of the C. G. Conn Instrument Company. He collaborated with this manufacturer in producing instruments worthy of any orchestra and of any performer. 444 Mr. Tuba There are no tubists other than Helleberg and Fred “Fritz” Geib, to my knowledge, who achieved recognition or fame in the nineteenth century . Some important early-twentieth-century tubists were John Kuhn, Giovanni Manuti, Fred Pfaff, Jack Richardson, Gabe Russ, Johnny Evans, and others who were made prominent by their work with the John Philip Sousa Band, Bohumir Kryl, the Patrick Conway Band, and other famous touringbands.Othersestablishedtheirreputationthroughplayingthejazz oftheperiod:JoeTarto(a.k.a.VincentJosephTortoriello),PhillipCadway, and, to a lesser extent, Joe Park. The Shifting Markets of the Early Twentieth Century It may seem to the reader that, with the noted exception of Helleberg , orchestral players were kept under wraps and were unknown in comparison with the band performers. Bear in mind that the first thirty years of the twentieth century belonged to the band. Every town of any size had its own local town band modeled after...