# Works that live or die by orchestral soloists



## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

There are a few orchestral works that really live or die, make it or break it, on the quality of the orchestral soloists - the orchestra principals....
as a whole, the ensemble can sound very fine, but if the solos are not happening, it's rather a lost cause...

there are, for me - a couple of obvious ones:

*Ravel - Bolero* - that''s basically, the whole piece, until the final few sections
*Rimsky- Korsakov - Scheherazade* - huge solos - Violin, Clarinet, bassoon, oboe, among many...if these aren't happening with elan, with panache, espressivo - the performance is really a dead duck....

I might add - 
*Stravinsky - Petrushka* - lots of solos - flute, trumpet, bassoon, clarinet, oboe, tuba - tho not as predominant as the above mentioned

I hesitate to include the major works of Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss - obviously there are many , many solos - but the entire orchestra ensemble is really the crucial aspect, for me...


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

R. Strauss Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote. Starring roles for the principal violin and cello, respectively.


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## Marsilius (Jun 13, 2015)

Let's not forget the triangle!

Liszt's first piano concerto wouldn't be the same without it. In spite of some critics decrying its use, Liszt offered a robust defence:

"The Scherzo in E-flat minor, from the point where the triangle begins, I employed for the effect of contrast. As regards the triangle I do not deny that it may give offence, especially if struck too strong and not precisely. A preconceived disinclination and objection to instruments of percussion prevails, somewhat justified by the frequent misuse of them. And few conductors are circumspect enough to bring out the rhythmic element in them, without the raw addition of a coarse noisiness, in works in which they are deliberately employed according to the intention of the composer. The dynamic and rhythmic spicing and enhancement, which are effected by the instruments of percussion, would in more cases be much more effectually produced by the careful trying and proportioning of insertions and additions of that kind. But musicians who wish to appear serious and solid prefer to treat the instruments of percussion en canaille (lowly people, riff-raff), which must not make their appearance in the seemly company of the symphony. They also bitterly deplore inwardly that Beethoven allowed himself to be seduced into using the big drum and triangle in the Finale of the Ninth Symphony. Of Berlioz, Wagner, and my humble self, it is no wonder that 'like draws to like,' and, as we are treated as impotent canaille amongst musicians, it is quite natural that we should be on good terms with the canaille among the instruments. Certainly here, as in all else, it is the right thing to seize upon and hold fast [the] mass of harmony. In face of the most wise proscription of the learned critics I shall, however, continue to employ instruments of percussion, and think I shall yet win for them some effects little known."

And, although it is merely a part of the orchestral mix rather than enjoying solo prominence - and in spite of some conductors reducing its prominence even in that - the triangle makes a real and spine tingling impact during the gloriously bombastic finale of the rediscovered symphony of Hans Rott.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

hpowders said:


> R. Strauss Ein Heldenleben and Don Quixote. Starring roles for the principal violin and cello, respectively.


Right - but they really feature those parts as "solos" - as in featured soloists....same with Mahler 5 - horn and trumpet...
I guess you could say that Scheherazade features the concertmaster/mistress as a featured solo as well - but that work features several prominent orchestra soloists...


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

The quality of a Mahler 5 performance can often be gauged by the quality of the trumpet soloist at the very beginning. 
The most soloist-heavy pieces that come to my mind are Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin (oboe) and Bolero (just about everything but most notably trombone, saxophone and clarinet), Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake (oboe, violin, trumpet; I've heard soloists botch performances of Swan Lake before), Rossini's William Tell Overture (cello and English horn) and Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel (horn, clarinet and others). 
Gershwin also uses violin and clarinet solos often, and occasionally trumpet. "An American in Paris" and "Cuban Overture" need pretty darn good soloists to pull off.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Gordontrek said:


> The quality of a Mahler 5 performance can often be gauged by the quality of the trumpet soloist at the very beginning.
> The most soloist-heavy pieces that come to my mind are Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin (oboe) and Bolero (just about everything but most notably trombone, saxophone and clarinet),


Tombeau is an oboe concerto!! Bolero- big bassoon solo, introduces 2nd theme same as trombone solo.



> Rossini's William Tell Overture (cello and English horn)


 cello - solo and section, and flute, duet with Cor anglais....

Mahler 5 is almost like Don Q - Trumpet 1 and horn I are featured soloists....Mahler 3 has big solos for Trombone [mvt I]. trumpet/posthorn [mvt III]
Mahler 7 - major solo for tenor horn...heard Chicago perform this live in Boston - Mike Mulcahy [trb II] played the solo - brilliantly - real virtuoso touch...great playing
then there's the old Scherchen/VSOO version,in which, IIRC, the tenor horn sounds absolutely awful - like a sick elephant farting into an aluminum trash can....


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

I'll nominate Rachmaninoff yet again - sorry folks.
Listen to the 3rd (slow) movement of his 2nd Symphony. The strings get the ritornello theme up and running, then a solo clarinet slides in, heartbreakingly wistful. The whole movement stands or falls on how well that lonely clarinet sets the mood.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

"I'll nominate Rachmaninoff yet again - sorry folks.
The whole movement stands or falls on how well that lonely clarinet sets the mood."

Sorry, hardly comparable to Bolero, or Scheherezade, which rise or fall on the orchesra soloists, as a group.

"Listen to the 3rd (slow) movement of his 2nd Symphony."

not if I can help it. :devil:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

"Le Tombeau" is NOT an oboe concerto. The English Horn has prominence too.


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

Marsilius said:


> Let's not forget the triangle!


I once applied for the job of principal triangle player with the London Symphony Orchestra. I did really badly, messing up my very first audition piece, which I normally played so well. The panel wanted to pull the plug on me then and there, but I begged them to let me continue on the basis that tings could only get better.


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## Autocrat (Nov 14, 2014)

The adagio from Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez lives or dies on the solo cor anglais. I know this because I've heard it die. 

I'll also add Mahler's 9th Symphony. Plenty of opportunity there for the horn/trumpet/oboe/flute/violin soloists to ruin the whole thing.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

hpowders said:


> "Le Tombeau" is NOT an oboe concerto. The English Horn has prominence too.


Major oboe solos, audition piece, all the way...not just one movement.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Autocrat said:


> I'll also add Mahler's 9th Symphony. Plenty of opportunity there for the horn/trumpet/oboe/flute/violin soloists to ruin the whole thing.


Mahler is always full of challenges for most everyone....for Sym #9 - don't forget all of those wonderful solo, soli passages at the end of Mvt II Landler - for Bassoon, viola, Horn, and contrabassoon....


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

_Rite of Spring_ is dead even before it really starts if the bassoon player is not up to it.

I have certainly been in any number of concerts where the horn section has committed a felonious assault on the given work. I remember one time when the question was not if the horns would crack, but when.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Heck148 said:


> Major oboe solos, audition piece, all the way...not just one movement.


Yes. The first movement solo is a well-known oboe audition piece, but to call it an oboe concerto is simply not accurate.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

hpowders said:


> Yes. The first movement solo is a well-known oboe audition piece, but to call it an oboe concerto is simply not accurate.


Well, maybe I was exaggerating [just a little... ] but it is a major work for oboe -

Oh - another Stravinsky piece - with very important solos for select instruments - "Pulcinella" - major solos for oboe, bassoon, also big solos for 2ble bass, trombone.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Yes and what about Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat.

If the first violinist calls in with the flu, the performance must be canceled!


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

hpowders said:


> Yes and what about Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat.
> 
> If the first violinist calls in with the flu, the performance must be canceled!


Of course, but that's really a chamber work - one player per part....


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Heck148 said:


> "I'll nominate Rachmaninoff yet again - sorry folks.
> The whole movement stands or falls on how well that lonely clarinet sets the mood."
> 
> Sorry, hardly comparable to Bolero, or Scheherezade, which rise or fall on the orchesra soloists, as a group.
> ...


A chacun son gout!


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Debussy's Prelude To The Afternoon Of A Faun dies with a bad flutist for me.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Take the principal flute away from Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe, you've got a problem. Play it very, very slowly. Stall for time 'til he/she gets back.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Heck148 said:


> Of course, but that's really a chamber work - one player per part....


I didn't think anyone would actually read my post and notice. :lol:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

All the winds-principal clarinet, flute, oboe and bassoon are individual stars in Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, which for me is really more a concerto for orchestra than a symphony.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If the orchestral pianist doesn't show up for Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta re-program to his Concerto for Orchestra.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

Too numerous to mention. The fastidious conductor will assure in rehearsal, and with sound engineer for recordings. I might add, over-emphasis is as bad, if not worse, than underplay.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If the tympanist has a MD appointment and will have to miss the Schumann Second Symphony performance, think up an alternative ending. The audience wouldn't have a clue anyway.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

hpowders said:


> If the tympanist has a MD appointment and will have to miss the Schumann Second Symphony performance, think up an alternative ending. The audience wouldn't have a clue anyway.


ha ha Where's that triangle, I saw it a minute ago. Enough, let's stay serious.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

There is a huge cor anglais solo in the first movement of Shostakovich's 8th symphony, and a very tricky French horn solo in the first movement of the 5th which involves a very high note.
What about the snare drum in Nielsens clarinet concerto; does that count?


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

techniquest said:


> There is a huge cor anglais solo in the first movement of Shostakovich's 8th symphony,


Yes - it goes on for about 4-5' straight!! DS also wrote a long one for CA in Symphony #11..He wrote some nice, lengthy bassoon solos , too. 



> What about the snare drum in Nielsens clarinet concerto; does that count?


both the clarinet and snare drum are ost important in Nielsen Sym #5.


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

> both the clarinet and snare drum are ost important in Nielsen Sym #5.


That's true - and we could also cite the timpani in Nielsens 4th


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## pcnog11 (Nov 14, 2016)

The trumpet shall sound - Handel's Messiah.


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## pokeefe0001 (Jan 15, 2017)

pcnog11 said:


> The trumpet shall sound - Handel's Messiah.


I heard a performance where the trumpet player muffed it. "The trumpet might sound".

And on a very different hand, ... The Sibelius 4th symphony is full of critical solo parts, but there is a clarinet run about a minute and a half into the 4th movement. It's only a few seconds long, but for me it can make or break a 40 minute performance. (Well, it can break it. Well executed it might help an otherwise poor performance, but it can't "make" it.) I was listening online to find that solo and found 4 recordings that I thought did a terrible job. One was marked "amazing". Amazingly bad, maybe.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

hpowders said:


> All the winds-principal clarinet, flute, oboe and bassoon are individual stars in Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, which for me is really more a concerto for orchestra than a symphony.


Yeh, Shost #4 is a good candidate - big trombone solo too...


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## techniquest (Aug 3, 2012)

> Too numerous to mention. The fastidious conductor will assure in rehearsal, and with sound engineer for recordings. I might add, *over-emphasis is as bad, if not worse, than underplay*.


Absolutely - like the dreadful-sounding tam-tam in the Karajan recording of Prokofiev's 5th.
On the other hand, few things annoy me more in recorded music than an inaudible high-low tam-tam exchange at the very end of Mahler's 2nd (grrr).


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Heck148 said:


> Yeh, Shost #4 is a good candidate - big trombone solo too...


Yes. The second movement is more a concerto for wind soloists than a symphonic movement and of course the violin has some prominent solos too, throughout the symphony.


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## Bettina (Sep 29, 2016)

Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, third movement "Scène aux champs." The opening passage for (offstage) oboe and (onstage) English horn requires a nuanced interpretation: it needs to sound pastoral, yet melancholy.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

^^^Unfortunately it usually just sounds dull.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Bettina said:


> Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, third movement "Scène aux champs." The opening passage for (offstage) oboe and (onstage) English horn requires a nuanced interpretation: it needs to sound pastoral, yet melancholy.


Love that, some great recordings out there.


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