Wagnertuba

As Printed on a Score

Labels the Wagner tubas, normally a quartet of two tenor tubas in B-flat and two bass tubas in F (Tenortuben, Basstuben), played by horn players. Their notation is notoriously inconsistent: Wagner, Bruckner and Strauss used different transposing conventions, so read the composer’s note or the edition’s preface before trusting any written pitch.

Also spelled: Wagner tuba, Wagner Tuba

How Composers Use It

Built for the Ring so that the horn section could add a darker, more solemn brass chorale between horns and trombones; Bruckner used them in his Seventh (the funeral music for Wagner), Eighth and Ninth, Strauss in Elektra and the Alpine Symphony. Played with horn mouthpieces, they are soft-edged and noble rather than powerful. Modern scores increasingly write them in F like horns; they need horn players who double.

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