Andrei Eshpai - Tuba Concerto

- Composer: Andrei Yakovlevich Eshpai (15 May 1925 -- 8 November 2015) - Orchestra: The Symphony Orchestra - Conductor: Alexander Vedernikov - Soloist: Dmitri Anakovsky (tuba) - Year of recording: ~2004 Concerto for Tuba, String Orchestra and Brass, written in 2001. Eshpai's Tuba concerto is a composition in one movement that explores many of the possibilities of the tuba; from fast passages to drawn-out moments of the tuba harmonising with the orchestra, to the tuba playing a lead melody over orchestral ostinati, while utilising a range from nearly the highest to the lowest notes possible on a tuba. The piece has a slow beginning, with more than 3 minutes of tuba solo before the orchestra enters, perhaps to let the audience get accustomed to the sound of an instrument that isn't used as a solo instrument very often. Soon some fast passages for both tuba and orchestra follow in the middle section, only to resolve in a slow ending which demonstrates the lamentful qualities of the tuba sound, like a mist-horn bemoaning the people lost at sea. The piece ends on an ominous sounding chord, with the tuba playing a tremendous, sustained low C note.