Wednesday, December 12, 2012

"You can be sure that if a composer of the stature of Ralph Vaughan Williams had written a tuba concerto we would know about it."

In 1954 Roger Bobo read a story about Ralph Vaughan Williams' Tuba Concerto in Time magazine, and wrote to the Library of Congress to ask where he could find a copy of the music. The title of this post comes from the letter they sent in reply to his request. Bobo tells the story about meeting the composer here.


While you are on the site, make sure to click on the little music player on the upper left (it started automatically for me), and listen to Roger Bobo play the Air from Bach's Third Suite. It's simply beautiful.

2 comments:

Charles CĂ©leste Hutchins said...

Bobo was my tuba teacher's teacher, so when I was in school, I played all the warmup exercises he devised. I also now only a tuba that he played for a year or so. I had no idea he was blogging. thank you so much for linking to it.

Joe Carlson said...

My loving parents were indifferent to music but even they were aware of the big German names so when I decided to explore classical recordings I wanted someone they would be flummoxed by. Forget how I happened on Ralph Vaughan Williams but soon my bedroom was blaring not only Led Zeppelin but also the Adrian Boult recordings of his pal Ralph - a name I pronounced in the British manner to confuse my parents even more. I have remained loyal to Ralph through thick and thin.