Word: tubaman
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...London Symphony, preparing for its soth jubilee concert, had asked Ralph Vaughan Williams, Britain's No. 1 composer, to write a special composition for the celebration. Vaughan Williams just happened to have a tuba concerto * lying around, agreed to have it played if the orchestra had a tubaman up to the job. Would Catelinet like to audition for Vaughan Williams? Into London's frisky traffic went Catelinet, his tuba and his piano accompanist...
There were hearty rounds of applause for Tubaman Catelinet, Conductor Barbirolli and Composer Vaughan Williams, who was sitting in the front row. Next day the London Times summed up: "The tone . . . was sufficiently rich and warm to fire any composer's imagination, but [Catelinet] did not suggest that the tuba can do much in the way of varied phrasing or dynamic nuance to repay promotion to a solo status...
...graceful hands which seem to mold every phrase of the music that is played. The orchestramen seemed like cogs in a magic wheel, but within the Orchestra each player has an important identity. Violinist Alexander Hilsberg is envied for his $35,000 Guarnerius which once belonged to Jan Kubelik. Tubaman Philip Donatelli is the orchestra's winemaker, father of seven daughters. Two Spanish Torellos play in the double-bass section. Father Anton is an oldster in the Orchestra. His son Carl is there to follow in his footsteps. Trumpeter Saul Caston is conducting in Evansville, Phoenix and Holdrege...
Cincinnati seems to be the seat of tuba experiments. Tubaman James Austin Houston who plays in radio station WLW has a bellows contraption called an aerophor attached to his instrument (TIME, Dec. 14, 1931). He pumps it with his foot to shoot auxiliary air up through a hose into his mouth where, by a special facial technique, he shoots it back into the instrument. Tubaman Houston is puny. His aerophor is purely a lung-saving device. William Bell's invention is not for weak tubamen. It does the work of two tubas-a double bass and a baritone...
...Tubaman Bell deftly shifted his instrument about this week, blew first on one mouthpiece and then on the other, getting a four-octave range as against the two and a half octaves possible on a normal tuba. Two tubamen can play on Bell's instrument at the same time but they would have to be ambidextrous to avoid interference on the single set of valves...