Bruckner F Minor Mass

[Mertelstein]

Hi all

One of the orchestras I play with is doing Bruckner’s third Mass in F Minor in September. I’ve got the part early and was following it with the score and several recordings.

The bass trombone part has a couple of marked trills in the fugue in the middle of the Gloria. What’s interesting is that these mirror the trills in the horns and the woodwind, but the alto and tenor trombones don’t have them marked in their version of the subject.

There are a couple of academic articles that posit the reason for this being that the orchestra Bruckner was composing for had slide alto and tenor trombones but a “bass valve trombone” which would explain the difference. Listening to recordings it is very difficult to discern whether the trills are included in practice (in some it seems to differ even within the same performance).

My question to the community is therefore - leaving aside the conductor’s intention which I’ll no doubt discover once rehearsals start, is there a “norm” for performing this and if so how would you perform it? The notes in question are a D# and an F in the middle of the stave (bass clef).

[brassmedic]

Looking at the autograph score, that subject is not consistently marked as a trill on those notes in other appearances. The tenor and alto don't play the full subject until later. The tenor voice line does not have the trills at that point. The alto voice line does have a trill on the E, though. It's an interesting theory that one of the trombones was valved, but maybe it was just a matter of the copyist trying to copy from a score that's not very consistent?

But if it were me, I would leave them out. It would be pretty tough to make a convincing sounding trill that low in the overtone series.

[Mertelstein]

Thanks Brad - this is really helpful, especially going back to the autograph score (I should have done that rather than basing it off the trombone parts and the various marked cues).

The following is a link to one of the sources I quoted about the valve trombone issue, just for general interest:

https://www.historicbrass.org/edocman/h ... Rainer.pdf

And also this excellent article had a little bit on it:

https://www.tonkunstler-on-the-bund.com ... h/shifrin/

As you say, register-wise they’ll probably end up sounding a gloopy mess so sonically better to omit.

Thanks again for your helpful response.

[Finetales]

I've read that the bass trombone Mahler had available (and the reason why he only wrote for it once, in the 6th) was an F bass valve trombone. Perhaps that was also the case for Bruckner?

Hopefully the historians will chime in.

[brassmedic]

I looked at the article you posted, and it says the F minor Mass was probably premiered with 3 valve trombones. Where did you read that it was 2 slide trombones and a valved bass?

"The Viennese Years (1868–96)
Mass in F Minor (WAB 28), for chorus and orchestra (2,2,2,2; 2,2,3,0, timp, strings,
organ)
Premiere: 16 July 1872, Vienna
The premiere of the Mass in F Minor took place in Vienna’s Augustinerkirche under
Bruckner’s direction on 16 June 1872 with musicians of the Court Opera Orchestra
and was repeated in the chapel of the Hofburg on 8 December of the same year. The
trombone section of the Court Opera (and the Vienna Philharmonic) consisted at
this time of two tenor valve trombones in B and a bass valve trombone in F."

He also wrote in the introduction that Bruckner "obviously never composed trombone parts specifically for valve trombones".

[LeTromboniste]

This is likely meant for valve trombones but I wouldn't infer that had anything to do with the notation of trills. Bruckner saw himself as part of a long tradition, and dutifully seeked to assimilate styles of the past. Some of his choir pieces very clearly attempt to follow the rules and style of the counterpoint of Palestrina, and some of his masses are very Mozartian (none more so that his Requiem, fantastic piece). The F minor mass is a more mature work than those earlier pieces, but that's how he trained as a composer, so some things just stuck. It's extremely standard for Austrian masses with trombones doubling the voices to have the trills of the choir also notated in the trombone parts (and also for those to be very inconsistently notated).

[Mertelstein]

I looked at the article you posted, and it says the F minor Mass was probably premiered with 3 valve trombones. Where did you read that it was 2 slide trombones and a valved bass?

"The Viennese Years (1868–96)
Mass in F Minor (WAB 28), for chorus and orchestra (2,2,2,2; 2,2,3,0, timp, strings,
organ)
Premiere: 16 July 1872, Vienna
The premiere of the Mass in F Minor took place in Vienna’s Augustinerkirche under
Bruckner’s direction on 16 June 1872 with musicians of the Court Opera Orchestra
and was repeated in the chapel of the Hofburg on 8 December of the same year. The
trombone section of the Court Opera (and the Vienna Philharmonic) consisted at
this time of two tenor valve trombones in B and a bass valve trombone in F."

He also wrote in the introduction that Bruckner "obviously never composed trombone parts specifically for valve trombones".

Thanks for flagging this. I’ve driven myself nuts trying to find where I read the slide / valve point earlier and cannot find it anywhere. I think I’ve got to assume I had a brain failure - the closest thing I can find is reference to “two tenor trombones and a bass valve trombone” - maybe when skim reading I interpreted the references to tenor trombones meaning slide trombones.

Either way - moral of the story is always take your time reading and re-read your sources!

[Mertelstein]

This is likely meant for valve trombones but I wouldn't infer that had anything to do with the notation of trills. Bruckner saw himself as part of a long tradition, and dutifully seeked to assimilate styles of the past. Some of his choir pieces very clearly attempt to follow the rules and style of the counterpoint of Palestrina, and some of his masses are very Mozartian (none more so that his Requiem, fantastic piece). The F minor mass is a more mature work than those earlier pieces, but that's how he trained as a composer, so some things just stuck. It's extremely standard for Austrian masses with trombones doubling the voices to have the trills of the choir also notated in the trombone parts (and also for those to be very inconsistently notated).

This is fascinating to read - particularly the approach in Austrian masses. Thanks so much for sharing this - I do love reading into and around issues like this.