Barber of Seville ... Heads up!

[walter]

I played Rossini's wonderful opera last night using a fresh new part published by Kalmus ... the publisher notorious for printing errors.

Pieces 4 and 5 [don't ask me for names please] had interesting transpositions, although both were marked for Trumpets in A.

It turns out that #4 can be in one of 2 different keys, and although it's marked only for A trumpet, it can actually be for Bb trumpet, as it was done last night.

#5 turned out to be much more of a challenge. Although it's marked for A trumpet, it's actually for trumpet in G! ... low G, or course. It's one of the few times in my life that I've shifted gears into G outside of my practice room. Of course, the conductor had no idea what was happening.

walter

[PC]

Doesn't Berlioz ask for G cornets in Symphonie Fantastique ?

I don't recall having ever had to deal with G trans. These days I have my neurons fully occupied with Norwegian and Finnish composers writing chromatic stuff (involving even double flats) for E trp. For the challenge and the beautiful thick sound, I make it a point of using my rotary Bb. The advantage of playing in an amateur orchestra is that being given the opportunity to rehearse these pieces ad nauseam, the transposition isn't bothering anymore. Funnily, we got an overture by another Fin last rehearsal, written for trp in Bb; I can't remember when last I had the opportunity of reading a Bb part on a Bb trp. It sure seemed confusing at first!

Which tends to prove that there is some point in practising EVERY imaginable transposition at home.

Pierre

[Brewblue1]

PC is correct, the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique originally had G cornet parts. However the modern editions have been re-written for Bb cornets.

If you check out Book III of the the International Excerpt books, it contains the original G parts.