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A Wagner Tuba Success Story
In April of 2008 the Green Mountain Mahler Festival performed Bruckner’s 7th. Not long after I had some correspondence with one of the Wagner tubists, Helen Read, who chronicles the experience of preparing and performing the work in the Vermont Horns website. The following is a quote from the section of the article where they answer the question “So What is So Special About It?”
About the best description we came up with for the Wagner tuba is that it’s what the horn would be if it had been invented by Dr. Seuss. The Wagner tuba is wonderful and strange and quirky, if not downright squirrelly. It’s a horn yet not-a-horn, familiar and foreign all at once. Intonation can be an adventure on the Wagner tuba, and sometimes the instrument feels a little out of control. And then there’s that crazy up-in-the-air bell, projecting the sound off into space somewhere. And it sounds really cool. Really. Really. Cool.
Check out the whole article and their audio and video clips. And also check my Wagner Tuba Page for more information on the instrument.
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