Gerhard Meinl's Tuba Sextet TUBA! A Six-Tuba Musical Romp Divertimento No.2 in B flat major (W.A.Mozart) 1. Allegro 2. Menuetto 3. Larghetto 4. Rondo 5. Fugue in G minor (J.S.Bach) 6. Second livre des pieces de clavecin, for harpsichord: 6th Order, No 05 "Les Baricades Misterieuses" (Francois Couperin) 7. O la o che bon echo, villanelle for 8 voices, S. x/140 (Orlande de Lassus) 8. Canzona per Sonare No.4 (Giovanni Gabrieli) 9. Partita: Polacca (Jan Josef Rosler) 10. Praeludium (Walter Hilgers) 11. Bruckner Etude (Enrique Crespo) Three Milongas (Enrique Crespo) 12. Milonga 13. Campera 14. Condombe 15. Three Folksongs for 4 Brass (Frank Denson) 16. Meltdown (Jonathon Sass) 17. Melton Marsch (F.Watz) 18. Bayrische Zell (traditional) 19. Baryrische Polka (anonymous) ?? 09/15/1992, Angel Records PERSONNEL: Sam Pilafian - tuba Enrique Crespo - tuba Jonathon Sass - tuba Walter Hilgers - tuba Dankwart Schmidt - tuba Warren Deck - tuba Gordon Gottlieb - percussion HISTORY: Incongruity has a wild poetry of its own - in the best of its incarnations it radicalizes our palates, expands our imaginations, it amuses and enlightens us. Where would the world be without its unlikely combinations? Think of that incredulous Twenties bartender saying: Gin and vermouth? You see, it worked. Thanks to the imaginative Gerhard Meinl, a fourth-generation German tuba-manufacturing scion who had the extremely incongruous vision of all-tuba chamber music, we now have these recordings. They rank right up there on the great register of incongruous world events, well above prosciutto and melon, but just a few hundredths below (sorry guys!) the dry martini, straight up, with a twist. What's especially interesting and important here is the project's purity of line and the group's dedicated attack. The tuba is the group. Except for one track which requires a smattering of percussion, there is nothing else on this record but the rare beast itself in its various gauges, played by six world-class tuba masters. Because of its extreme rarity, this album has a very private air - it's as if we're invited to sit in as six highly endangered elephants, who have gathered from the four corners of the world, hold a long conversation about their lives. The discourse is naturally wise, born of long and heavy experience, but it is also deeply witty and adroit The fact is this: elephants, and tuba masters, know a lot about life. These six players have in fact come from all over the world to wipe our heads clean of presentiment by making their instruments dance. Seems a little incongruous, doesn't it? This is something they accomplish, communally, with great elan. It's no accident that among the compositions there are South American milongas, a march, a minuet, some jazz-fusion, and a postmodern sort of square dance composed on classic American folk songs. The tuba masters take us from the Baroque to the 16th century, then double back up to the present day without even pausing for breath. There is something a little defiant in performing such a broad smorgasbord of music. It's a schoolyard sort of challenge: don't think we can touch the rim, huh? Alright, watch this! It's essential for us to remember that there is usually just one tuba master per symphony orchestra, and that there aren't many composers or pieces which require the instruments. The irrepressible tuba master and associate producer Sam Pilafian describes the player's lot: You know, it's play a few bars, then sit out four hundred bars, then play a few bars.? That accounts for the dramatic sense of release we experience in each of the recordings here - who better to have playing on your record than six expert musicians who never get to play? These men are putting their shoulders into the music. The tuba was invented early in the nineteenth century in Germany to deepen the brass voices. In other words, it was made to provide color, to carry other instruments on its broad acoustic back. Alone, as such, it has a curious sound: warm, but also somehow distant and very, very large. These musicians treat it with such affection and skill that it attains immediacy - it becomes an immediate, self-sustaining, storytelling voice. And what stories! Here, for example, is the story in the second milonga, the campera: it's two in the morning in B.A. That steak was really something. The waiter has just brought you your coffee. You look up from the bullfight papers and wham! There she is! You've heard about her for the past week. Her father is the head of the secret police, but that doesn't matter. You'll only be in town for the next two days - by the time he finds out about you and her, you'll be winging out of town on a worn-out DC-3. Okay, the police may be shooting at the DC-3, but right now the band is playing a milonga, this milonga. Your eyes lock with hers... Yes, it's all possible in the wonderful world of incongruity. It's even possible, in the hands of these wonderful musicians, for the tubas to tell us a love story. I recommend mixing a very dry martini, sitting down, and listening to these very wise, rare voices tell us what they know.
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