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What NextAs published on TubaNews.comNever before in music history has anything like this happened; a relatively new instrument arrives on the scene and in an incredibly short time evolves to this level... with virtuoso artists, massive repertoire and an amazing collective energy amongst its aficionados. The tuba is just a little over one hundred years old. It is the newest instrument to be accepted into the symphony orchestra community, its development has been huge, and there seems to be no end in sight. Where will we go from here? As in politics and religion, music has its liberals and its conservatives. In the middle of the last century two great conductors, Arturo Toscanini and Leopold Stokowsky, personified these polarities. Toscanini was the conservative, treating the score with total integrity and Stokowsky, the liberal, changing all things that he felt the composer might have done differently if the modern symphony orchestra were available at the time the work was written. From a retrospective of the last hundred years it is not difficult to determine tubists have not been a conservative group. This kind of progress would not have been possible with a conservative approach. In fact, with so little history there would have been very little to fall back on with conservative leanings. There was only our future to contemplate. These are exciting times for us… the intense history through the last hundred years that has led us to where we are now, the present, which is alive with activity and perhaps most interestingly, our future. Where will we be going on this fantastic tuba journey? It’s alive, it’s unique and all of us, old, young, professionals and hobbyists, have observations and perspectives on how we got to where we are. We have our separate views on what’s going on now, and we have our predictions and intuitions regarding our future. What could be better than this new Internet magazine, TubaNews.com, to share these thoughts? We’ve moved so fast through time that it seems perfectly appropriate for us to use this highest level of communication to chronicalize our thinking. I personally would be very interested in your views of what’s happening and what’s going to happen in this chronic tuba evolution that is influencing all our lives. Stretch your minds and share your thoughts, whether it’s our future in the pizzeria or science fiction fantasy. This is your web page. Fiesole, Italy - January 2004 |
