the history of the tuba
outline
Jack has investigated the history of orchestral performance practice of the tuba, detailing evidence of which instruments (and, on occasion, instrumentalists) orchestral composers would have encountered from the late seventeenth century to the present day. This showed the organological development of these instruments, and how individual composers’ relationships with the tuba family developed over their careers. It also detailed how and why contemporary tuba performance practices arose, and the effect that these have had on the roles of the tubist and composer in creating and performing music both new and old.
His more recent work has investigated the early history of the tuba as a solo instrument, through rediscovery of manuscripts of music for tuba (with military band accompaniment) from the mid-nineteenth-century in Sweden. This has involved transcription of scores, quantitative analysis of nineteenth-century instruments, and acoustic- and performance-based analysis of a modern replica of an 1840s ‘Berliner’ bass tuba. Articles, scores, and recordings related to this research are due for publication in 2024/25.
He is also co-host of The History of The Tuba Podcast with instrument builder Louis Jake Kline. Season one, covering the period up until 1850, is due to be released in full by the end of 2024.
publications and recordings
“The History and Future of the Tuba Family: Material-, Resonance-, and Performance-Based Perspectives,” Timbre and Orchestration Resource, 2024
“Tubas, Tubists, and Composers: a mixed-methodological approach to performer- and composer-instrument relationships,” PhD thesis, The Royal Northern College of Music, 2023
“Serpents, Bombardons, and the “Wiener” Tuba: Richard Wagner and the Evolution of the Orchestral Contrabass Labrosone” in the Historical Brass Society Journal 34 (2022)
Documenting the low brass-wind collection at the Grassi Museum. Blog post for the North West Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership PhD Placement Scheme, November 2022
The Techniques of Tuba Playing / Die Spieltechnik der Tuba. Kassel: Bärenreiter, June 2020
Recordings of orchestral excerpts on historical instruments including Berliner- and Wiener-style tubas, English and French tubas, various forms of bombardon, and an Italian valved bass trombone (‘cimbasso’)
Comparative recordings of orchestra excerpts on historical and commonly-used modern instruments
public presentations
July 2024: “‘If the tubist cannot produce this tone in pianissimo, it is to be taken over by the contrabassoon’. The Tuba in the Orchestra of Gustav Mahler,” Gustav Mahlers Klang: Zwischen Schaffensprozess, Interpretation und Rezeption (Toblach / Dobbiaco, IT)
July 2024: “Lost music for a lost instrument: Nineteenth-century solo repertoire for bass tuba,” Historic Brass Society (New York NY, US)
July 2024: “Professionalisation or fossilisation? Higher education instrumental teaching, and the case of the tuba family,” The Second Biennial Conference on Music and the University (University of Guildford, UK)
June 2023: “The ‘Wiener’ tuba: a mixed-methodological approach to instrument studies and artistic research,” American Musical Instrument Society (University of Memphis, Memphis TN, US)
June 2023: “Nineteenth-century operatic orchestration for the tuba family, and its impact on orchestral practice and vocal pedagogy,” Interdisciplinary Approaches to Opera (University of Cambridge, UK)
April 2023: “The ‘Wiener’ Tuba: Historical and contemporary perspectives,” Sixth International Romantic Brass Symposium “Romantic Brass in Context” (Hochschule der Künste Bern, CH) (with Louis Jake Klein)
September 2022: “Serpents, Bombardons, and the ‘Wiener’ Tuba: Richard Wagner and the evolution of the orchestral contrabass labrosone,” The Fourth Vienna Talk on Music Acoustics (mdw, Vienna, AT)
June 2022: “Richard Wagner and the contrabass tuba,” Farbe und Atmosphäre im tiefen Schweben: Basstrompete und Bass-/ Kontrabasstuba im Orchesterklang Richard Wagners (Musikinstrumentenmuseum der Universität Leipzig, Leipzig, DE) (co-convenor with Ryoto Akiyama)
May 2021: “The contrabass tuba: Wagner’s most mysterious, divisive and influential “invention”?,” Historic Brass Society (online)
March 2021: “Exploring nineteenth-century tuba-composer relationships,” European Platform for Artistic Research in Music (Royal Academy of Music, London, UK)
January 2021: “Exploring nineteenth-century tuba-composer relationships,” Historical Performance Institute Fifth Annual Conference (Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington IN, US)
field work
Jack is very grateful to have been given access to the following archival, museum, and private collections as part of this project:
National Museum of Denmark / Danish Music Museum, Copenhagen (DK): 03.10.2024
Kölnisches Stadtmuseum, Cologne (DE): 07.08.2024
Deutsches Museum, Munich (DE): 16.-17.05.2024
Stadtarchive Nordhausen, Nordhausen (DE): 18.04.2024
Scenkonstmuseet, Stockholm (SE): 11.04.2024, 01.02.2024
Music and Theatre Library, Stockholm (SE): 10.04.2024, 31.01.-02.02.2024
Landskrona Town Museum, Landskrona (SE): 05.04.2024
Günter Hett, Bergisch Gladbach (DE): 09.-12.01.2024, 31.01.2022
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (US): 15.-18.05.2023
Karl Breslmair, Trautmannsdorf (AT): 17.03.2023
Michael Pirscher, Vienna (AT): 16.03.2023
St. Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh (UK): 03.-05.03.2020