Instrument
Tuba
The largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument, and the newest member of the standard orchestra.
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched instrument in the brass family, providing the bass foundation beneath the trombones, horns, and trumpets above it. It's also the youngest standard orchestral instrument by a wide margin - not invented until the 1830s, meaning composers before the mid-1800s (including Beethoven and everyone earlier) never wrote a note for it, since it simply didn't exist yet.
Before the tuba
Earlier composers who wanted a deep brass-like bass had to make do with stranger instruments. The serpent, a snaking wooden tube with finger holes and a brass-style mouthpiece, was used in churches and military bands from the 16th century. The keyed ophicleide replaced it in the early 19th century - Berlioz wrote for it in his Symphonie fantastique, and Mendelssohn in A Midsummer Night's Dream - and today those parts are usually played on the tuba.
The tuba itself was patented in Prussia in 1835, combining a wide brass tube with the newly invented valves. Its full, round sound won it a permanent place in the orchestra within a few decades.
How it works
Like the trumpet, it changes pitch using valves rather than a slide, but its tubing is conical (gradually widening along its length) rather than the trumpet's mostly cylindrical bore, which is a large part of why the two instruments sound so different despite sharing a valve mechanism. Uncoiled, a large tuba's tubing would stretch about 18 feet. Players use a big, cup-shaped mouthpiece and enormous amounts of air.
Orchestras typically use just one tuba, in contrast to the two or three players common in the other brass sections, and different sizes (pitched in BBb, CC, Eb, or F) suit different orchestral and solo contexts.
Relatives
It's easy to confuse the tuba with the similarly named Wagner tuba, which Richard Wagner commissioned for his Ring cycle: despite the shared name, it's a distinct hybrid instrument played with a horn mouthpiece, usually by horn players, not a smaller version of the standard tuba. The euphonium is a smaller, tenor-voiced cousin, and the sousaphone, named after the bandmaster John Philip Sousa, wraps around the player's body for marching.
A surprising soloist
Despite its size and deep register, the tuba is a genuinely agile instrument in skilled hands, and while it's typically used to anchor the brass section's harmonic foundation, it does have a modest solo and concerto repertoire showing off a more melodic, lyrical side than its reputation as a purely supportive bass instrument might suggest. Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the first major tuba concerto in 1954, and John Williams wrote another in 1985.
Famous tuba moments
- Mussorgsky, orchestrated by Ravel - "Bydlo," from Pictures at an Exhibition.
- Berlioz - Symphonie fantastique, the "Dies irae" in the finale.
- Wagner - Die Meistersinger and the Ring.
- Prokofiev - Symphony No. 5.
- Vaughan Williams - Tuba Concerto (1954).
Where to start listening: the tuba's warm, exposed solo melody in the "Bydlo" movement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (in Ravel's orchestration) shows its lyrical, melodic capabilities. Vaughan Williams' Tuba Concerto, one of the few concertos written for the instrument, is worth hearing for how far it pushes the tuba as a solo voice.