For our April concert, Encore (the Concert Band) will be performing selections from Carl Orff's CarminaBurana. I love the piece and have been looking forward to rehearsing and playing it. It should be interesting with a concert band and a top local male chorus.
Tonight we had our first run at the piece. All was going pretty well for me on the 4th horn part until we hit the 13th movement, "Fortune Imperatrix Mundi" (Fortune, Empress of the World).
It started out being relatively easy stuff. Notes below the staff in the treble clef are not always easy for horn players used to playing above the staff in treble clef, but the first couple of lines were a piece of cake for a career 4th-horner like me (whose chops are going and who has troubles playing notes above the treble clef staff).
And then I hit the 3rd line (beginning bar 13) of the 13th movement:
I can play low notes. In a recent concert I had fun playing an E-flat below the staff of the bass clef (yes, that's right, bass clef!) but look at this section. If I'm reading this music correctly, that's a frickn A waaayyyy below the staff.... below the bass clef staff. I have never been able to play any note below a C# below the bass-clef staff. I don't know if ANYone can play the note as it is written. Certainly none of the top-flight horn players in Encore can even come close, so far as I know.
I figure Carl Orff was just having fun with this (or was it the arranger who is responsible? I've never seen the full orchestra music).
I cheat. I play the A at the bottom of the staff in the bass cleff. It seems to work. And I'm grateful they weren't eighth-note runs in that range.