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Recording of sopranino on Bolero?

16K views 33 replies 19 participants last post by  EgilF. 
#1 ·
You learn something new everyday. I stumbled across an article about the saxophone family & it mentioned Ravel's writing for sopranino saxophone in Bolero. I thought it was mistaken until I did some fact checking - very interesting!

I realize it was written for sopranino in F (anyone know when production on these ended?) but was curious if there are any orchestral recordings featuring the original intended instrumentation. Either an Eb or F 'nino would work. It'd be really interesting to hear it performed on a "period instrument".

Of course it works very well for soprano but I was just curious to see what kind of effect the change in timbre may or may not have.

Thanks in advance!
 
#2 ·
I doubt there are any recordings, would be a nightmare, especially as a soprano has to take over the nino line.

I did it as part of a wind rep session at college on my nino in Eb, it really wasn't a successful experience (btw, not cos I couldn't play it, it was more to do with the Sop/Tenor player).
 
#3 ·
The Conn C soprano and F mezzo were the last hold overs from the 30's-40's were the end of the line really. I know a company makes C saxes but really they aren't widely used. I've never seen another sax pitched in F even thought it was part of the original 2 groups of pitches saxes were made in.
 
#4 ·
The really strange thing is that it is Nino in F and then Sop and Tenor in Bb..... Not quite sure what he was thinking!?!?!
 
#8 ·
I played this once (with a pro orchestra) on tenor, and a good friend played the other part on nino (we used all three saxes). He is a very good nino player, and played well, but we didn't notice the part was in F until the first rehearsal! :0 The conductor was a horn player though, so he was very understanding.
 
#10 ·
I don't think most of the orchestra knew enough about saxophones to know the difference between a soprano and a nino, let alone appreciate the fact that we were using it. My former oboe teacher, who was playing 3rd oboe on the concert, thought it was pretty cool. But most people were fawning over her d'amore playing rather than us using sopranino.
 
#12 ·
That was a very informative video -- thank you for posting the reference. Indeed, it seems logical to perform the sopranino and soprano parts on soprano alone. I wonder, though, why it's common to assign separate tenor and soprano players for Bolero, when one person can easily cover both parts.

Incidentally, how do folks feel about scooping the glissandi, as the second one is treated here?
 
#13 ·
Here's a fairly recent, high-quality recording of the piece performed by the Orchestre de Paris and conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. The famous tenor part starts at around 5:10, and is followed by a solo on soprano rather than sopranino. And yes, there are two separate players for each part.

 
#15 ·
I've heard the story mentioned before about Adolphe Sax conceiving of a family of Bb/Eb saxes for band, and a C/F family for orchestra. What I've never read definitively before is, did Sax ever get around to building actual instruments in C/F (other than his original prototype, which I understand was a Bass in C adapted from an ophicleide)? The C and F instruments we are more familiar with were built in the 20's and early 30's, well after Sax died.
 
#19 ·
Sax made a few sopranos in C and tenors in C, and even fewer altos in F. The theory that the F and C saxes were for orchestral use, and the Eb and Bb saxes were for military band is losing credibility.

All of the pieces, as far as I know, published by Adolphe Sax as contest pieces for the Paris Conservatoire were for saxes in Eb and Bb, and these were solos for serious (classical) performance.

I have some disagreements with Robert Howe, who contends that the first sax was a bass in Bb - I think it was in C. However, he presents very good evidence that the Bb tenor was the last saxophone produced in quantity during the early history of the saxophone, and the instruments in C and F were not in regular production

At the original saxophone factory, when saxophones were completely hand made, producing a saxophone in a completely different key cost less than doing the same thing in a modern mass-production facility. After seeing some of the brilliant, but bizarre, 7 bell trombones, cornets and trumpets made by Adolphe Sax, I'm sure Adolphe Sax could have made saxes in any key, but the saxophones in Bb and Eb became the standard instruments used in both orchestras and bands.
I would be happy to see evidence to the contrary.
 
#17 ·
There's no practical reason to play it on sopranino when it goes out of range when the last part has to be covered by someone else on soprano, so just play the lot on soprano as has been the most logical and done thing and save yourself (and the tenor player) the extra hassle.

And why do so many players play it in such a stiff, academic manner when they have the opportunity given to them to pull it around more? It's a solo so treat it like one - I'm sure Ravel wouldn't mind if he was still around and may have wanted that. And a well-done portamento is far more effective than a fingered gliss provided the player is up to it - take a note from the trombone solo later on.
 
#26 ·
Old thread, new reply. There is an interview with Marcel Mule in which he discusses playing the premier of Bolero, which he later played with Ravel present a number of times. (I don't remember if Ravel conducted the premier, but I don't think so) He said that they (the saxes) were mystified by the sopranino in F inscription on the part. None of them had ever heard of one. The previous professor of saxophone at the conservatoire had been Adolph Sax, and he apparently had left no clues to any such existence of said instrument. So, Mule played it on soprano, transposing the part as most of us do today. Ravel never said anything, nor did they tell Ravel about it. Apparently Ravel was not one to take suggestions from musicians unless he asked for them, and Mule said he never really talked to the saxophonists.

Any such instruments have been made since then by aficionados who wanted to impress their conductors by having the right instrument for the part.

That said, a number of conductors have insisted on using a sopranino/soprano combo as written, thinking that maybe there was a coloration difference. I'd say that in that range, the coloration was hardly noticeable, except for the fact that mouthpieces for Sopranino are in short supply, there being very few models and facings available. Therefore, most sopranino players do not have access to the kind of sound they probably would like to produce.

I have performed it with Dallas and Mexico City symphonies as written, in addition to other orchestras on soprano and/or tenor, but I never played the sopranino part. I played the soprano in the hand-off, after having played the tenor solo. In the Mexico City winter, at that altitude, reeds were a tremendous problem for someone who had just flown in to play the part. The poor chap who played sopranino once found himself faced with recalcitrant reeds, causing much trouble on what is really a very simple part. The glisses ended in squeaks, and I felt very sorry for him, for he was an extremely fine player. But Bolero is a mystical piece to perform. If someone has a bad solo, it tends to go like dominos, culminating in the extreme catastrophe of the trombone entrance. That was the case in one of the Mexico City performances, on which the sopranino player squeaked so badly. I think about half the soloists flubbed something. I played fine, but the tenor solo presents little challenge, and the soprano handoff leaves hardly anything to flub.

I wish someone would explain to the publishers that Ravel was simply mistaken about the "Sopranino in F," and put an end to all attempts at so-called authenticity with an instrument that did not exist. It is unnecessary, problematic, and adds nothing to the piece even when done flawlessly. Nobody cares! Soprano plays the range perfectly, and has enough of that juvenile voice in that register to pass for a sopranino. Nobody specializes in sopranino, so they're never going to be at their orchestral best when playing that double. Ravel made a mistake. Let's admit that the composer was not above a simple error in the availability and keys of an instrument hardly ever heard in the orchestra up to that point. Publish the parts for Soprano and Tenor, and put that absurdity behind us! It's a popular piece of music that will be played into eternity, so do the future a favor and get rid of the mistake!

Shooshie
 
#27 ·
I meant to add, but got distracted with tangents (sorry) that the Dallas Symphony did a recording with the original instrumentation (Sopranino in Eb, however, not F, of course) back in about 1980 or 1981. I don't know if it's still in print. Probably not. The conductor would have been Eduardo Mata, and it was recorded and released on LP by RCA Tel-Arc. The saxophonists were Mike Adamcik (sopranino) and Dennis Diemond (tenor/soprano). They did a beautiful job. I have heard it on the radio in the past few years, but that doesn't mean it's available. Dallas did a number of recordings with saxophone, some of which I played on. I have not been able to find the ones I'm on since about 1995, when I found a CD in a bargain bin in a music store in Phoenix, so I assume the Bolero recording is also out of circulation.
 
#29 ·
It's still available and cheap… just found it for $3 on Amazon…

Sent from my VS980 4G using Tapatalk
 
#30 ·
I listened to it, and I don't think it was a split. I could hear him/her crossing the break at soprano points, not nino points. Plus, the handoff was without change in airstream, meaning it was just a slurred passage, not an end and beginning of phrase. And lastly, the player sounded the same. Same blunt phrasing.

Tenor player in the linked recording tried to do the gliss both with fingering and voicing, causing it to start a whole step lower than written. My, I'm quite the critic today. It's just that we have to maintain a standard to be taken seriously enough to be used in the orchestra. Of course, there's no telling when that recording was made. But if it's an old recording, it goes to show that every performance counts. What's recorded stays around forever.

In Mata's Dallas Symphony recording with my friends playing, I can clearly tell them apart, though the average listener probably would not notice the switch. Dennis tended to use a faster, narrower vibrato than Mike, and more curved phrasing. Both sounded great; I'm just pointing out differences of style.

Shooshie
 
#32 ·
Does anyone have the sheet music for the sopranino part on Bolero?
 
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