Tuba Tuba: Nine Pieces for Solo Tuba

Tuba

Editor's Note:

These nine pieces for solo tuba, primarily written in the 1970s and 1980s, cover an astonishing amount of ground - in style, in technique, and even in notation. Van Nostrand's Tuba Tuba (an extract of which is featured on the cover), Zonn's Red Wiggler, Beerman's Crystals II, and Mitchell's Soliloquy I (from Journey to the Yellow Springs) are rich mines of graphic notation and playful technique. They also appear in ACA's graphic notation series Strange Imaginary Creatures. Fennelly's Tesserae IV/V and Stein's Two Pieces ("Transformations" and "Duplex") paint two different approaches to Modernism - the Fennelly in a high abstract style, the Stein in pantonal eclectecism. Bliss's miniature Aria and substantial four-movement Evocations explore a lush soundworld that blends the lyricism of the tuba and extended techniques. The most recent work in this anthology, Jacobs' Diegesis, serves as a reflection of the tuba's lyrical qualities post-20th Century.