Giant Tuba - May 15Th, 2012 in the Music Hall of Markneukirchen, Germany

Concert Review Giant Tuba - May 15th, 2012 in the Music Hall of Markneukirchen, Germany

Having been living and working in the most beautiful city of Bamberg in northern Bavaria as a member of the Bamberg Symphony for almost 20 years, I´m not only enjoying - and hopelessly fighting - the constant temptation of delicious food and quality beer, but I ´m also taking advantage of the fact that so many of the important tuba locations like some of the best tuba manufacturers and repair craftsmen in the world, but also the famous Bayreuth Festival as well as the Bavarian Music Academy Hammelburg, where the “Deutsches Tubaforum” is regularly doing their biennial tuba workshop and local conference, and last but not least the music town of Markneukirchen, location of B&S company and the world famous international tuba competition are all within close distance of less than 3 hours drive.

So I was extremely lucky that my tight schedule allowed me to drive to Markneukirchen on May 15 for what promised to be one of the most worthwhile tuba events of many years: the world premiere of the newly built Giant Tuba being played in concert! Featured Soloist was highly acclaimed tubist Professor Jörg Wachsmuth, member of the Dresden Philharmony and the Melton Tuba Quartett. He was accompanied by the City of Markneukirchen Concert Band, conducted by Dr. Enrico Weller and Jochen Krebs.

The concert was planned to be the hilight of the musical program around this year´s tuba competition and had a traditional start with the “Fanfare der Vogtländischen Musikwettbewerbe e.V.”, a fanfare that had been commissioned years ago to start every concert at the competition. The program continued with the “Optimist´s March” by Miroslav Juchelka, followed by a brilliant and witty introduction held by B&S chairman Gerhard A. Meinl, who led through the entire concert. Mr Meinl especially welcomed the participants and jury members of the ongoing tuba competition. Also he pointed out the importance of the Czech and Bohemian composers and their music, which had their origins in the K.u.K. Monarchy back in the times when Bohemia was the music conservatory of Europe.

Then Mr Meinl introduced soloist Prof. Jörg Wachsmuth, winner at the Markneukirchen competition in both 1988 and 1992. His first solo on the program was the tuba concerto by Pavel Stanek. Jörg had played the world premiere of that piece and has already recorded it on CD in 2008. The first movement presents a classic dialogue situation between soloist and orchestra, interchanging between lyrical passages and more rhythmically accentuated structures. The second movement has a pastoral introduction led by the high woodwinds and long melodic singing lines in the solo tuba leading into an agitato section and a grandioso in 12/8 rhythm, finally finding it´s way back to the pastoral cantilenes of the beginning. The third movement starts as a burlesque with tricky rhythms in the percussion accompanying the melodic lines of the solo tuba, daring fugato lines in rapid ¾ rhythm bringing the piece to a brilliant stretta finale. Mr Wachsmuth performed Stanek´s concerto on his B&S 3100 F-tuba showing his stupendous virtuosity as well as heartwarming melodic qualities and a fantastically beautiful and clear sound.

In Gerhard Meinl´s next speech he quoted a few sentences in Czech to introduce the evening´s next piece, the four movement “Frydlant Suite” by Pavel Stanek. This was followed by Alois Klima´s “Concert Polonaise”. After an intermission the concert continued with Julis Fucik´s famous “Florentiner March”. Then the other two soloists of the evening, singing couple Sabine and Jürgen Kaiser of Markneukirchen were introduced and gave Otto Wagner´s Polka “Man muss nicht erst nach Böhmen”. Gerhard Meinl afterwards pointed out the differences of show instrument sousaphone as opposed to the much more beautiful helicone before introducing the composer of the next piece, Gustav Ploß. Mr Ploß, 81 years of age, had written the concert waltz “Brambacher Radiumperlen” - after the performance of the waltz he was asked to come on stage for a grand applause. Next was a speech by Markneukirchen´s City Mayor Andreas Jacob, who held a laudatio on the more than 30 craftsmen and companies being involved in constructing and building the Giant Tuba – that was in fact already positioned on stage on it´s giant stand during all of the second half of the concert. During the first half it had been standing aside, next to the stage, well visible for the audience to raise anticipation. Mayor Jacob pointed out the especially crucial efforts of craftsman Mr Hartmut Geilert and project coordinator Mr Mario Weller as well as the B&S company as one of the major sponsors of the project. The 8 most important contributors involved were asked to come on stage to receive some honorary presents accompanied by long and enthusiastic applause from the audience.

For the international guests, Gerhard Meinl did a humorous translation into English of a summary of his talking, making fun of an existing giant EEb tuba located in Boston which is said to have some awkward proportions as opposed to the presented Markneukirchen Giant Tuba that had been built in an absolutely exact 2:1 scale ratio, making it actually playable. Mr Meinl pointed out that a daring project like this could only be possible in a place, where such a tremendous number of fine craftsmen is located whithin an area of just a few kilometers around Markneukirchen, which is a singular situation.

Finally, Prof. Jörg Wachsmuth entered the stage, now in Lederhosen, and took place behind the huge horn, to play Julius Fucik´s “Der Alte Brummbär” (“The Old Grump”), originally written for bassoon - and custom arranged for giant tuba in BBBb and concert band by Hans-Reiner Schmidt of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony. There is already a request for having the piece transcribed for giant tuba and strings to be performed at the next new years festive concert with the Dresden Philharmonic aimed to top the Vienna Philharmonic on TV…

The evening came to it´s culmination when Jörg played the first notes on the BIG HORN, showing superb ensemble playing with the band, perfect tempo changes and stupendous virtuosity in what proved to be a very clever arrangement of Fucik´s composition, leaving enough space for the wonderfully mellow and still huge sound of this grandiose and spectacular music instrument. Instant standing ovations showed the extremely high appreciation by the audience, most deserved by the soloist´s artistic and highly musical skills. Gerhard A. Meinl expressed his gratefulness towards Jörg Wachsmuth who hadn´t hesitated a second when asked to do this solo appearance on the giant tuba - that hadn ´t even been finished yet when the concert project was proposed. He pointed out the extreme difficulties of playing such an enormously huge horn, and compared handling it with blowing onto a tennis ball with a straw.

Next pieces of music were Julius Fucik´s March “Schneidig Vor” and the Polka Medley “Mein Schönes Heimatland”, again featuring the singers duo Sabine and Jürgen Kaiser. Mr Meinl held a final speech pointing out how proud the whole region can be of all the people involved being capable – and successful – to build such a unique piece of craftsmanship. Last piece on the official program was Rudolf Friml´s “Donkey Serenade”, a fun piece for concert band. Of course the audience asked for an encore, so Jörg Wachsmuth had to enter the stage once more to do a very clever arrangement of the “Flight of the Bumble Bee” (also written by Hans-Reiner Schmidt) on the Giant Tuba. Having tried to press the valve levers myself it is utterly enigmatic to me how Jörg was able to achieve the clarity and sheer tempo he showed in his performance. Again gaining instant standing ovations, the piece had to be played for a second time, even faster. Jörg is planning to beat the world speed record of violinist David Garrett on this piece. The City of Markneukirchen Concert Band ended the concert with Vejvoda´s famous “Rosamunde Polka” and the traditional “Markneukirchner Musikanten Marsch”. Little bits of the performance can be found on youtube.com.

Heiko Triebener, Bamberg, June 19, 2012