Music to listen to!

Premiere publicly available recording of Brent Dutton's Polis (1970)for solo tuba.

Recorded in Berlin, Germany in June 2021, using a B&S "PT-6P" C tuba.

Part of the Modernist Classics for Solo Tuba project, supported by Musikfonds e.V. and Neustart Kultur.

Brent Dutton: Polis (1970)

Jesse Ronneau: Carthage (2018)

Jack Adler-McKean (solo tuba)

Recorded in Schildau, Germany in July 2021

https://www.editiongravis.de/verlag/product_info.php?language=en&info=p2386_Carthage.html

Jesse Ronneau: Carthage (2018)

Be On Your Way

Party

Stereo Mind Game

Neptune

Middle Farm Session

Be On Your Way (Middle Farm Session)

Written for and premiered by trombone virtuoso Carl Traugott Queisser in 1828, Christian Gottlieb Müller was a violinist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig, where Queisser also played viola. Like its more famous counterpart written almost a decade later by Ferdinand David, the work is described as being written for bass trombone, likely referring to the B-flat instruments developed around this time in Leipzig by Carl Friedrich Sattler.

An 1843 report in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik on the founding of a new Musikverein in the town of Nordhausen (which had hosted a music festival in 1829 featuring Queisser as a soloist) mentions that a concert in January 1843 featured an otherwise unknown ‘Concertino for bass tuba by Müller (performed by Engelmann)’. Wilhelm Wieprecht, the co-inventor of the bass tuba alongside Johann Gottfried Moritz, delivered an instrument to the regimental band of nearby Sondershausen in 1836, so perhaps Engelmann was a soloist brought in from this band to perform Müller’s Concertino using this instrument. This recording recreates what this performance might have sounded like on that instrument.

Tuba (copy of a Moritz-Wieprecht tuba and mouthpiece built by Louis Jake Kline in 2024): Jack Adler-McKean
Piano (built by Ibach in 1923): Jia Lim

Recorded and mixed in Zepernick on 25 January 2025 by Dietrich Petzold (tonus arcus).

For further information on this project, see: https://www.jackadlermckean.eu/the-history-of-the-tuba

Christian Gottlieb Müller - Concertino

A collection of nineteenth-century scores and parts from the band of the Första Livgrenadjärregemente (First Life-Grenadier Regiment) based in the town of Linköping has been preserved at the Music and Theatre Library in Stockholm. A 1985 catalogue of this collection contains a score and corresponding parts for a 'Concertino' for tenor trombone from Wieprecht. As well as being a conductor, administrator, and co-inventor of the bass tuba alongside Johann Gottfried Moritz, Wilhelm Wieprecht's published work list includes a Concerto (KWWV-A-060) and Potpourri (KWWV-A-100) for trombone, but not a Concertino. The front page of the score does not indicate a work for solo trombone, but rather, on the fifth stave is a part labelled 'Tuba Solo'. On the individual solo part, above 'Concertino för Ventil Tenor-Basun' (for valved tenor trombone) and underneath the librarian’s stamp is also the indication 'Tuba Solo'.

This score collection is not dated, nevertheless, contemporaneous newspaper records suggest that the musician most commonly associated with performances of this work was C. J. Jonzon who gave the earliest traceable performance in August 1847, while a concert advertisement from 1849 describes it also as a work for bass tuba.

This work received likely its first performance in around 150 years in New York in July 2024 as part of the Historic Brass Society Conference, accompanied by a piano reduction made by the soloist (also used in this recording).

Special thanks are extended to Ann-Marie Nilsson for her initial primary-source research and guidance in this field.


Tuba (copy of a Moritz-Wieprecht tuba and mouthpiece built by Louis Jake Kline in 2024): Jack Adler-McKean
Piano (built by Ibach in 1923): Jia Lim

Recorded and mixed in Zepernick on 25 January 2025 by Dietrich Petzold (tonus arcus).

For further information on this project, see: https://www.jackadlermckean.eu/the-history-of-the-tuba

Wilhelm Wieprecht - Concertino

This piece was performed by Wet Ink Large Ensemble at the Dimenna Center for Classical Music in April 2015.

Instrumentation: fl, ob, b.cl, t.sax, tpt, tbn, pno, perc, 2 vln, vla, vlc, electronics

Ocean waves are so darn peaceful and meditative with their “shhhhhhhhhSHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhooooooooooooo, shhhhhhhhhSHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhooooooooooooo, shhhhhhhhhSHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhooooooooooooo” OVER and OVER and OVER. White/Waves begins with an instrumental shhhhhhhhhSHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhooooooooooooo vibe in the ensemble juxtaposed with raucous, Nirvana-squelching ruh-buh-ruh-buhs in the piano and warbly Zen-blocking WEEEooooWEooWEEEoooos in the electronics. The B-section material began with shhhhhhhhhSHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhooooooooooooo field recordings from Sunset Beach, NC, but I wanted them to sound more manic and unpredictable so I sculpted the waves into filtered bursts, blips, swells, and sweeps and put them in dialogue with frenzied instrumental waves and orchestrated new versions of the sculpted white noise bursts, blips, etc.

WARNING: this piece in the key of Queen Bey Major (so you might hear some Beyoncé and some B-major chords).


White/Waves

Very little is known of Friedrich Ludwig 'Louis' Hässler's life beyond his work as a violinist in the Fürstlichen Hofkapelle (later known as the 'Loh-Orchester') in Sondershausen where he died in 1876 at the age of 56. His paternal grandparents were the composer Johann Wilhelm Häßler, nephew and student of Johann Christian Kittel (student of J. S. Bach), and the soprano, pianist and conductor Sophia Barbara Häßler, neé Kiel. Among his sons was Karl Amadeus Wilhelm Häßler, composer and choral conductor most notably in Lübeck where he was awarded a professorship in 1905.

During Hässler's tenure in Sondershausen in the 1850s, the orchestra gained renown for performing "neudeutsche Musik" including the tone poems of Franz Liszt and early operas of Richard Wagner, music which made extensive use of the newly developed bass tuba. The instrument Sondershausen is described has having an "excellent representative" in Carl Ziese (a founding member of the orchestra's brass quartet in 1866), perhaps inspiring Hässler to compose such a virtuosic work for the instrument. The piece was likely not published until a considerably time after the composer's death, with versions for tuba, bassoon, double bass or tenor horn accompanied by piano, orchestra or wind ensemble advertised from 1892 onwards. A new critical edition of the score will be available from late 2025.

Tuba (copy of a Moritz-Wieprecht tuba and mouthpiece built by Louis Jake Kline in 2024): Jack Adler-McKean
Piano (built by Ibach in 1923): Jia Lim

Recorded and mixed in Zepernick on 19 July 2025 by Dietrich Petzold (tonus arcus).

For further information on this project, see: www.jackadlermckean.eu/the-history-of-the-tuba

Louis Hässler - Concert, Op. 14

Live recording of ensemble recherche at Harvard University, 21 May 2016.

Martin Fahlenbock, Shizuyo Oka, Barbara Maurer, Åsa Åkerberg, Melise Mellinger, Jaime González, Klaus Steffes-Holländer, Christian Dierstein
— ensemble recherche

Clara Iannotta, John Pax
— guest performers

James Bean
— audio engineer

Anthony DiBartolo
— recording engineer

http://chrisswithinbank.net/2016/05/union-haze/

union|haze

union|haze (ensemble recherche)

Evan Johnson - Rückenfigur for solo tuba:

1. rassegnato / privato
2. eco distratto-"rassegnato / privato"
3. marginale / privato
4. spettrale come catastrofico (marginale / privato)

Tuba: Jack Adler-McKean

Recorded in Oxford on 5th March 2017
Recording Engineer: Nigel McBride

Evan Johnson - Rückenfigur

'On the celestial hierarchy' for flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, viola & cello
Composed 2014

Live performance by neuverBand at Kustraum Walcheturm, Zurich on 12 Nov. 2018, Mike Svoboda, conductor

'On The Celestial Hierarchy' (2014) for flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, viola & cello

Ensemble Modern&HR  Frankfurt/M.

Solistin : Nina Janßen-Deinzer

Edition Peters Frankfurt/M. 
https://www.edition-peters.de/cms/deutsch/general/komponist.html?composer_id=3425

iv 7 für Kontrabassklarinette

Architecture student. Fan of new music, art and literature.

Evan Johnson - Rückenfigur

Jack Adler-McKean

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