Answer the following about specially-designed orchestral instruments, for 10 points each.
[10e] Bruckner’s late symphonies use a “tuba” that this composer designed to bridge an acoustic gap between the French horns and trombones. Bruckner first heard this composer’s tuba in its debut at the first Bayreuth festival.
ANSWER: Richard Wagner [or Wilhelm Richard Wagner] (Wagner commissioned the Wagner tuba for his Ring Cycle.)
[10h] Charles Gounod’s St. Cecilia Mass is the only piece that calls for this instrument invented by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (“v’wee-YOHM”). The Montreal Symphony is the only ensemble that owns one of these instruments, which are lever-operated due to their size.
ANSWER: octobass [or octobasse]
[10m] Many performances of this piece use a custom bass trombone with a second slide to play a B–F glissando in its fourth movement. A third bassoon adds a running countermelody to the recapitulation of an earlier movement in this piece that is based on Croatian part-singing.
ANSWER: Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra (Bartók wrote that bass trombone part for an F bass trombone. Modern-day bass trombonists play B-flat bass trombones, on which that glissando is unplayable.)
<Jacob Egol, Classical Music and Opera>