Durch Adam's Fall ist ganz verderbt - JS Bach

Here's a brass quartet arrangement of Bach's Durch Adam's Fall ist ganz verderbt for two trumpets, Eb mellophone (sheet music says "horn in F", but it's an artifact of Finale), and baritone, separate parts. Horn and baritone parts are written in treble clef an octave up. TTC's lectures on Bach specifically mentioned this chorale, a dissonant, chromatic work. According to the lectures, "the sinuous, winding tenor line represents the serpent" etc.

A piano transcription, played by Markus Becker and also a string quartet arrangement by Quartetto Italiano di Viole da Gamba:

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Trainspotting

I took my kids to Musee Mechanique today, "one of the world’s largest privately owned collections of mechanically operated musical instruments and antique arcade machines". Jukeboxes are cool! Also, they have dioramas in a range of sizes and degrees of complexity - some really crude and some rather fancy and elaborate, with many characters and scenes. There was a diorama of a fair, with shooting gallery, an acrobat, concession stands, freak show, Ferris wheel, and a brass band. I snapped it with my phone.



The quality is regrettable, but still you can see: four clarinetists on the left of the conductor, four trumpets - notably, not cornets - on the right (only three are visible in the pic), then in the back row - flute, snare drum, bass drum, sousaphone, euphonium, tuba, two trombones, and in the middle no less than three mellophone players! These are not French horns, since they are played with right hand and the left one is not in the bell.

Why would you have both a sousaphone and a tuba?

Couturier mellophone

Last year I wanted to get me a new instrument. Window-shopping for trumpets is no fun - they all look the same. But then I came across one that is different: a Couturier Conical Bore Bb/A Trumpet. I was really fascinated: conical bore, takes a cornet mouthpiece, and especially the Bb-to-A switch valve... But when it came, somehow we did not click. I cannot explain it well, I just did not like it enough (maybe just not enough to pay $700) - so it went back.
Around that time I put in an eBay search filter for "Couturier," and one day a mellophone in Eb came up. Now if the trumpet is unusual, this thing's freak factor is off the scale. I could not resist. It cost me $100 including shipping, and I spent 75 more fixing it: frozen slide, broken water key, mouthpiece replating. I think the repair people were rather puzzled as to who would want an instrument like that and why.
One thing with the Couturier instruments - conical bore means none but the tuning slide are removable. OTOH, the inclined design means all the oil, spit, and grease goes directly into the slides and accumulates there. I had to soak and clean it out three times before it lost that godawful smell; the cleaning was rather tricky too - getting the snake into the slides from inside the pistons etc. Now it's perfectly playable and indeed rather nice. The only problem is it's missing a case. My wife tossed out the original case for it stank out the house and was really beyond salvaging. The french horn cases are expensive and don't fit too well.

So, how does it play? I think it plays great. It does sound like a horn - maybe not exactly, but much more like a horn than an oversized Eb trumpet. It could be the overall "horn" shape and the conical bore, but also the mouthpiece, which is a lot closer to the horn V-shape than to a regular trumpet mouthpiece. Above the staff the notes get rather tricky - G is OK, A is difficult.
I wasn't sure what to play on it, though. I did a two trumpets/mellophone/baritone arrangement of Bach's Durch Adam's Fall and practiced the horn line for a bit. Now I am thinking it will work great with the real horn repertoire; I think I'll try Mozart's horn concertos.
Mozart's manuscript contains bizarre scatological comments addressed to the horn player - can you beat that?

I did no new transcriptions lately. Maybe I'll use this space for gear talk. I'll write about my own instruments, but for starters here's something I was watching on eBay just now. "Vintage Rotary Valve Cornet". I came across it looking at various rotary valved brass and thought it looked cute. Made by Hail & Quiney in Boston; the internets know not of them. The starting price was $9.99, which is, you know, a fair price for a piece of no-name scrap metal. I figured I'll grab it if there would be no takers - would make a nice wall hanger. I saved the pics, here are a few:




Anyway, 15 minutes ago the bidding closed at $2,550.00. I guess quite a few people thought it was cute and would make a good wall hanger. Granted, it's in remarkably good shape for an antique, but two and a half grand! WTF? Who are these Hail and Quiney? Some legendary instrument makers?
I think I will go into an antique instrument forgery business.

Invention No.1 in C major, from 15 Two Part Inventions - JS Bach

I was reading about Lennie Tristano the other day. His students/bandmembers Warne March and Lee Konitz sometimes opened the gigs by playing Bach's two-part inventions arranged for two saxes.
I tried to do a brass arrangement; unfortunately, it's impossible to do for two trumpets, as the pieces span a range over an octave greater than trumpet's range. However, the first one works nicely for trumpet and baritone/euphonium (I choose from the instruments I have and can play). Only the last D of bar 6 is out of range; I transposed the whole phrase (last two beats of bar 6, b-c-d-D) as I wanted to preserve that octave leap.
I guess it can also work for trumpet/trombone or various saxophone combinations.
Here it is: both voices together or separate voices.
Note they are written in C, so if played by a Bb trumpet, they would sound in concert Bb.

JS Bach - Badinerie from Orchestral Suite no.2 in B minor

A stock show-off piece for flautists. It's catchy, fast, and high, and so is also a favorite for trumpet players. I have versions by Alison Balsom, Ole Edvard Antonsen, and Maurice André, who all seem to compete as to who can play it the fastest and the highest. I transcribed it for trumpet from the full score, moving it down from Bmin to Gmin.
Transcription

I will include an Alison Balsom version, which I really like, and also a version by Altamiro Carrilho, who plays it as a choro, dramatically slower and groovier; an approach opposite from everyone else, but I think it works great.
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Altamiro Carrilho - Chorinhos Didaticos para Flauta

This is from Chorinhos Didaticos para Flauta, a collection of etudes in the choro style by Altamiro Carrilho, a notable Brazilian flutist. Chorinho No.1, trumpet transcription (i.e. transposed down a fifth). I hope to do more as I make my way through the book; might add a backing track in the future.

Saraiva - Alegria de Campeões

An obscure choro piece, works nicely as an etude. This transcription is in concert pitch, but for trumpet it might be easier to play the notes as written.
Transcription

Hear it:
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Bach's Cello Suites

Jay Lichtmann's most excelent site with a wealth of sheet music for trumpet, trombone, and brass ensembles, including trumpet transcriptions of Bach's first three Unaccompanied Cello Suites @. There's also a full transcription for trombone with a very thorough commentary article at Doug Yeo's site.
I am not nearly advanced enough to play the Cello Suite transcriptions, so instead I am listening to as many versions as I can. So far the interpretation I like the most are Edgar Meyer's double bass transcriptions. He treats the dances as dances, with a steady pulse underneath. Most of the trad cellists play them rubato, one phrase at a time, which makes it difficult for me to follow. Pablo Casals, the presumably greatest-of-them-all godfather of Bach's Cello Suites, really goes overboard with this approach, so it sounds more like a free jazz solo than anything else - try dancing a menuet or allemande to Casals and you'll break your legs.
I also got a pile of other cello versions as well as a transcription for guitar and another one for flute (only the first three, though). Alison Balsom does Sarabande and Gigue from the second suite on her Bach For Trumpet album, and they are OK - she arpeggiates the chords, which must be crazy difficult to play and doesn't sound so good, IMHO.
Now I want to hear the suites on marimba!

Music notation

I always wondered who is to blame for the modern music notation (a rather imperfect and awkward system, IMO) - it's Guido d'Arezzo, also the father of solmization/solfège. Here's a biographical article from Catholic Encyclopedia and a pdf article specifically on his musical work. Perhaps his achievements are easier to see in context: Gregorian chant notation that was used before 1000AD, AKA neumatic notation.

Mission statement

This is a place to share music-related stuff: links, my transcriptions, musings on playing the instrument, and the like.