Bass Oboe

[kalliwoda]

I noticed the tagging for doublereed quartet, -sextet with "2 eh", if it is for englishhorn and bass oboe. This is very misleading.
You may describe a bassoboe as looking like a large englischhorn but this is almost like telling someone that an oboe looks from afar similar to a clarinet, it is not the same thing.

Most emphatically, and I hope I speak for all oboists here, I plead to introduce a separate tag for bass oboe.
The bass oboe may not be employed in a lot of historic pieces (even this is an overstatement), but for the last 2 decades there are quite a lot of double reed ensembles around, and more of these arrangements may be downloaded to imslp in the future. So there may be demand for a quick browse by doubleclicking the instrumentation tag. (This is one of the most wonderful features of the new tagging system, once you have found one piece for an ensemble, you can immediately list everything for the same instrumentation!)
If tags for very rare instruments should be avoided, a tag for "other instrument" may be a better solution then to force a not completely correct tag onto an instrument.

Re: bass oboe vs Oboe Baryton: These are not different instruments!
Oboe Baryton is the french rendering, with both Loree and Marigaux translating it to bass oboe in their english pages.
see http://www.loree-paris.com/engl/pages/i ... loree.html; http://www.marigaux.com
Loree also uses Bariton Oboe in its german page.

[Davydov]

The tags aren't really intended to go beyond the basic instumentation lists that appear in publisher's catalogues, so for woodwinds that's flute/piccolo, oboe/English horn, clarinet/bass clarinet, bassoon/contrabassoon. On that basis we don't have separate tags for bass or alto flute, alto saxophone, bass horns, tenor trombones, etc, which are all grouped with their parent instruments. That's why it didn't seem unreasonable to group the bass oboe with the oboes, but after further discussion (and checking with Grove), this was changed to English horn.

If the consensus is that a bass oboe deserves its own tag, then this can be done very easily. However, we need to be sure that the case of the bass oboe is stronger than that of (for example) the bass flute, tenor trombone or piccolo trumpet, none of which have been given separate tags. The current view of the tagging team is that we remain to be persuaded, but we're open to arguments.

In any case, it's advisable to put the term "bass oboe" somewhere in the text of the page where it appears, so that it will at least be picked up by anyone carrying out a general search of the site.

[Melodia]

Bass oboe certainly shouldn't get higher priority than alto flute. Eb clarinet, or oboe d'amore...and probably basset horn, at the least. Anything else, including bass obe, should all get basically the same priority.

[Philidor]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAM-VMvgIjM

[Notenschreiber]

I wrote an P.davydovs discusssion page:

"I noticed, that you now changed the equation bassoboe = oboe in bassoboe = english horn. But this equation is as wrong as the other. If you want to avoid rare instruments you should use a more general name like "double reed instrument" or "Oboe and bassoon instruments". To say something wrong can not be helpful for people who are browsing IMSLP but leads to the impression, that there is a lack of corresponding knowledge."

Notenschreiber

[Davydov]

Actually Grove's dictionary descibed the bass oboe as a type of English horn, which was the reason for the change.

However, you now have:

http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Scores_f ... _bass_oboe

This will list all the scores containing the bass oboe as a solo instrument, which consists exclusively of Notenschrieber's own arrangements for double-reed ensembles. For tagging purposes the instrument will be counted as an oboe, but I hope this solution will be an acceptable compromise.

[Notenschreiber]

Hi Davydov,
thank you for introducing this new category. Nevertheless I must say, that I would be confused, if I would search for a piece wtih
two english horns, click on the category "Oboe, 2 English horns, bassoon" and find nothing with two English horns.
Notenschreiber

[kalliwoda]

Hallo Davydov,

Thanks for all your efforts (the tagging system + the category walker is already a real highlight of imslp), and this new list really improves the browse capabilities.
Actually, I concur with your aim to keep the tagging system simple and elegant, and having hundreds of rarely used tags is not elegant and simple to use. So I have no problem with no separate tag for bass oboe. But there are some cases where this aim for more simplicity at the moment confuses (like with the double reed ensembles, because the bass oboe simply is neither an oboe nor an english horn). Tagging it as oboe has slightly more appeal, because I can rationalize "oboe family instruments".

This afternoon I had a look at a couple of online publishers catalogs, and not two of them seem to be the same.
If they use abbreviations, many just add rare instruments with their full name, and this would not fit well with the elegance of your tagging system. Doblinger, among them, corresponds best to your choice of abbreviated tags (only picc, eh, bcl, cbn included among woodwinds)
Many others use a numerical system, and this simply does not have the detail of your tags (however, if all oboe family instruments including the eh are lumped together, the controversial issue of how to deal with bass oboe or musette is simply avoided). Kalmus and the BDLO catalog seem to be the only publisher that integrate a select few alternate instruments into this system.
And I like the BDLO system, that additionally has the term "others", and you have to look for the full instrumentation list to find out what these other instruments are. I would prefer this, e.g. to see the a sextet for oboe, oboe d'amore, englishhorn, bass oboe, bassoon and contrabassoon tagged "ob eh bn cbn 2oth" than "2ob 2eh bn cbn"

Maybe this issue should be revisited, when your tagging efforts are finished and it becomes clear how many rare tags or how many instances of an "oth" tag could be required overall.

[Davydov]

Thanks to both for your comments. Just to be clear, as from yesterday when the change was made, the bass oboe is being counted as an oboe, not an English horn.

[Notenschreiber]

In the Haydn Sextett the bass oboe is still counted as english horn and there is no tagging concerning the bass oboe
Notenschreiber

[Davydov]

In the Haydn Sextett the bass oboe is still counted as english horn and there is no tagging concerning the bass oboe
Notenschreiber

The change was made on Tuesday, but it can take up to three days for category changes to show up in the listings. If you can tell me the title of the Haydn work in question I can try and speed up the process.

[kalliwoda]

Well, I may have sounded to easy to please in my previous post:
To state it unequivocally, to tag bass oboe either as ob or as eh remains completely wrong, only as a temporary solution is this tagging (barely) acceptable. Bass oboe is a different instrument from the oboe or the englishhorn, and most importantly, the part cannot be played on either instrument, because it is in a different range.
So there should be a different solution, once the tagging is closer to completion:
Either a new tag is introduced for bass oboe, or a general tag for rare instruments is used ("other"). To force a tag for a completely different instrument onto the bass oboe just to limit the number of tags is your system of tagging running amok.
(even less understandable when ob damore and eh have separate tags) as have bfl, afl, bsthn, and even bstcl).
Even if you look through publishers lists, you will not find bass oboe and oboe lumped together, unless all oboe family instruments are included.

...it also just looks strange, when you have the instrumentation field and the resolved tags in the same view and can directly compare:
for oboe, ob damore, englishhorn and bass oboe
For 2 oboes ob damore and englishhorn

[Davydov]

@ Kalliwoda / Notenschrieber — Because I'm starting from a position of complete ignorance of the bass oboe, I needed to be sure that the instrument was sufficiently different from an ordinary oboe to justify its own tag. It so happened that the first two knowledgeable contributors who expressed their opinions thought that in their view it wasn't distinctive enough, and it could be categorized as either an oboe or an English horn. So I followed that advice, while at the same time creating a separate category for the bass oboe.

However, you have both long-standing contributors to IMSLP who have continued to argue to the contrary on the basis of your own experience with the instrument. This now provides a sufficient basis to give the bass oboe its own tag, and thank you for providing the information required.

@ Everyone. There are a lot of decisions to be made in the new categorization system, and we won't always get it right first time. But you think a work has been wrongly categorized then you should contact the project team and we'll look into it. Bear in mind that only 25% of works have been recategorized so far, and there are still another 15,000 or so works we haven't looked at yet...

[Melodia]

Uh, a quick look at Wikipedia would have given you the answer. Thanks for the insult.

[daphnis]

Although the point is probably moot, let me lend my voice to this discussion and reinforce Kalliwoda's assertion that the bass oboe is indeed its own separate instrument and is not interchangeable with either the oboe or English horn. If anything, it is more seen as a replacement for the Heckelphone in some circumstances, but should nonetheless receive its own tag.

@ Davydov, thanks for your diligent work in this area. The tagging system is a great addition and long-sought feature on the site and makes it all the more usable.