I love vaughan williams, so picked up his tuba concerto to listen to. I then thought, being a contrabassoon player, that maybe it would sound allright on a contra instead. I was wondering if anyone has any experience of playing or accompanying it, and if it would be a positive experience for me, or bad

cheers

arnold

Hey, being a tuba player, I recently did the 2nd movement for Solo&Ensemble. There are actually ques for Bassoon, marks if I remember an octave higher. Now, I can`t say how hard it would be for a Bassoon, but it can get pretty difficult for Tuba, ESPECIALLY the 3rd movement, just being to freaking fast, but I highly recomend it. If you need a recording of it, at least the Tba with orchestra, let me know, its one of the standards for tuba.

tubachris85x@aol.com

-tubachris
(Who spent many hours, lots of food, and vasaline to play the 2nd movement on a BBb Tuba.)

In the actual part (Oxford publisher) there is a note that the 2nd movement "may also be played by violincello or bassoon." It also indicates when the cello/bassoon are supposed to play certain things up an octave (as Chris was mentioning), as the part goes below the range of cello/bassoon (low b).

If you play this thing on contrabassoon then you will need to read the whole thing us an octace, right? If you read it as is then it will sound an octave lower?

I`m not sure what the range of contrabassoon is, but we are talking about high F written 6 ledger lines above bass clef. Is that possible (or practical) on contrabassoon?