Tchaikovsky Pathetique Survey. Please help

I am trying to figure out when the custom of replacing the ppp Bassoon in the first mvt with the Bass Clarinet began and maybe ended. So please pull your recordings and report back with the info and the year of the recording.

I will start:

1)Toscanini-All versions 1938-1954-Bassoon 2)Ansermet-11/56-Bass Clarinet

I am looking forward to create a theory with all your info

Monteux-BSO 1955 nee RCA LSC 1901; Reiner-CSO ca. 1957 nee RCA LSC 2216: both bass clarinet.

Actually, it's pppppp. Are we talking about the measure preceding the Allegro vivo? If so, I had never noticed it before! I had always thought it was bass clar. Guess I had never really looked closely at this in the score before (yes DH, I have a score to this one).

I have an awful lot of recordings of this piece. It will take a while to check, but most I can cite OTTOMH.

Guilini/PO on EMI late 1950s Bass clar. Reiner/CSO on RCA late 1950s Bass clar.

ansermetniac wrote

'I am trying to figure out when the custom of replacing the ppp Bassoon

Stokowski, maybe, Mahler??

Sounds like a good topic to put up at the Int'l 2ble Reed society site!!

Regards, Eric Grunin

<<1)Toscanini-All versions 1938-1954-Bassoon>>

I read once that Toscanini conducted this in Philadelphia, and made Sol Schoenbach play the 4 note ending. SS missed one of the notes at the performance, and AT made known his displeasure with him.

Schoenbach really hated toscanini, thought he was a psycho and egotist, IIRC, not just for this, but some other things too. Toscanini's concert series' with Philadelphia were not generally happy affairs.

Sacqueboutier wrote

Yup, that's the one - it's scored for bassoon, but it really, IMO, sounds way better on bass clarinet. there's no way the bassoon in the low register can match the clarinet in its low register for ppp response.

As a bassoonist, i've had to play the part on every occasion that i've performed the work - i can get it pretty soft - by stuffing rags in the bell, I've removed the bell and inserted muffling cloths in the long joint, half-closed the low register keys, etc and so forth - but still, you cannot get the ideal effect that I believe PIT really had in mind. it's so much easier to do with clar/bss clar.

IOW - I think he scored it wrong.

The Sol Schoenbach affair is nicely described by Mr. Schoenbach in The Toscanini Musicians Knew By B.H. Haggin(The scourge of this newsgroup)

Toscanini, in the broadcast of April 6, 1940. In all subsequent performances (as well as the preceeding performance of October 29, 1938), he used the bassoon.

Cheers!

Brian Stewart

Those are my CDs. Sorry, I didn't have a chance to check all of my LPs. I assume Karajan continued with the use of bass clarinet after he arrived in Berlin. On LP, I have Horenstein, Boult, and both BPO Karajans.